--- snit wrote:
> You have to prioritize, as an individual. We have limited
> resources, as
> individuals. Same thing with collective struggles. Deb, through
> decades of
> on the ground experience in Texas, has made a decision about what
> she
> thinks the priorities ought to be for her--in Texas. So, why'd she
> bring it
> up here?
>
> I'm not exactly sure, but this is what I hear, she can correct me
> if I'm
> wrong. I think people in Blue Areas simply have no idea how far
> behind some
> pockets of the country are.
Bingo, though I wasn't just talking about Texas. We have to be aware, nationally, of our ongoing strategies and work accordingly, integrating what we can and selectively charging in one place while pausing somewhere else. What plays to a receptive audience in Massachusetts may get you comparing notes with Matthew Shepherd in the afterlife somewhere else. Brian Dauth filing a lawsuit re gay marriage in New York where Spitzer and company are maleable is one thing; lesbians in Oklahoma filing suit in a state, which is remarkably like Texas and where the ground for gay marriage is about as breakable as the rock hard ground of the Dust Bowl days is quite another. If Massachusetts and New York can carry the baton in one race, that's progress; but if the same action in another state throws us backwards, it makes more sense to pursue another track, perhaps employment discrimination. Strategy means picking your battles, and picking your battles well. It does not mean giving up.
Yes, I do feel that many on the Left and particularly those in Blue states have been blind to just how *different* it is in, not just pockets, but huge swaths of Red states. And it has been changing for the last few years, but I don't think the Left, or progressives, or liberals have noticed, leading to their being blindsided by elections such as this one.
Kel's anecdotes about cultural differences at work, whether it was about sexuality or language, are surfacing in places that, frankly, I wouldn't have seen just five years ago. I've worked in the business/corporate/finance sections of large, international law firms or legal departments now for 15 years, what one would normally consider to be a most secular, ungodly field (heh). I've seen a sea change in those environments, with more and more attorneys scheduling office time around regular Sunday church services, not just holidays (something once almost unheard of), corporate legal deparments sanctioning or supporting weekly prayer meetings, and schisms between attorneys and staff who are active in the high-income evangelical churches and attorneys who are Jewish or undeclared. The rise of the white, affluent evangelical is being felt in law firms with offices around the country and the globe, for crying out loud!
There's not just a problem in Kansas, and it's not just same-ole' same-ole' in the South. It's more complex than "just" the evangelicals, too. There has been a rising sea change of culture in the Red states, a backlash against the push-push-push of the 80's and 90's.
I know Kel and I have both mentioned it repeatedly, reporting from LimpDick and Tex-ass (the Bush states), and for too long, a lot of people just assumed our anecdotes were limited to our specific geographic area. But that "area" isn't just a couple of blocks, a bedroom community, a county or even a single state. It's fluid, on the move and transient like a lot of America. I've watched more and more retail establishments return to "closed on Sunday" mode. Hell, they may very well be doing it purely for economic reasons (likely, if it costs more to stay open for a diminished return), but their reason on the door is "to give their employees a chance to worship." Why say that? Are they witnesssing for JAY-sus!? Perhaps, but I'd suggest they are witnessing for something greater: money and client share. There's real money to be made now by catering to the evangelicals, especially the middle class white evangelicals.
- Deborah
===== "If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses." - Lenny Bruce