<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"></style><title>Re: [lbo-talk] You think the GOP is sure to lose big in No</title></head><body> <div>At 12:02 PM -0400 10/2/06, Doug Henwood wrote:</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite>On Oct 2, 2006, at 10:58 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:<br> <blockquote type="cite" cite>the US is a deeply petit bourgeois society - where the nauseous mixture of small town insularity, distrust of outsiders, public displays of piety and sanctimonious self-righteousness and jingoistic populism rule the day and dominate public discourse.</blockquote> </blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote> <blockquote type="cite" cite>Yes, it has been - which, by the way, is one of the reasons I think it's unfair to denounce Hofstadter as a "consensus" historian, because a lot of what he wrote is true, whiie the left historians were busy exaggerating popular resistance - but a lot of that is a holdover that survives as fantasy, while the underlying reality has changed a lot. And a lot of us live in metropolitan areas, are secular and/or gay (or have a gay cousin), have an open and cosmopolitan attitude towards the outside world. This cartoon doesn't describe all of us, but those of us whom it doesn't describe still cut the xenophobes slack as representing The Real America. Fuck 'em. They don't.</blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>Here is an easy read that adds to the conversation about the republican strength or weakness going into November.</div> <div><br></div> <div>This piece was written by a friend of mine for the local (Twin Cities) lefty alternative weekly. She spent several weeks in the most rural parts of the Midwest and Great Plains. I think this is a pretty good snapshot of that slice of America that can't vote democrat, no matter how bad the repubs become.</div> <div><br></div> <div>http://www.pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=2709&mode=&order=0</div > <div><br></div> <blockquote>Conservative, yes, as was evident from the emblems on their cars and houses. They wanted the world to know they supported the war in Iraq, and knew many loved ones fighting in it. Snippets of rabid local radio told me not to start a conversation about immigration or gay marriage with these people I depended on to fill my water bottles. I will never know how much my "white" skin, deep brown from over-exposure to the sun, and my obviously heterosexual relationship ("this is my husband, my daughter, my niece ...") eased my interactions with my new rural friends.</blockquote> <blockquote>...</blockquote> <blockquote><br></blockquote> <blockquote>I have to tell you that out there on the prairie, snippets about Israel and Lebanon, Fidel Castro's illness and Mexico's post-election upheaval seemed like absurd science fiction from another planet.</blockquote> <blockquote>...</blockquote> <blockquote><br></blockquote> <blockquote>When they, in the rural areas, and we, in the urban areas, have had enough, who will we turn against? Each other, or the corporations and politicians who seek to divide us and conquer us? ||</blockquote> <blockquote><br></blockquote> <blockquote><br></blockquote> <div>My own comments on the upcoming election:</div> <div><br></div> <div>I spend time with many third and fourth ring suburbanites who cannot vote democrat. The Minneapolis/St. Paul core cities are surrounded by them. The republicans are only one or two elections away from completely dominating Minnesota state politics, unless the republicans screw up so thoroughly that it opens the door for another Jesse Ventura or a rejuvenation of the DFL (Minnesota's special flavor of democrat). Recent polling highlights the dems' strength in the over 50 crowd and the republicans in the under 50 segment. Doesn't look like democratic rejuvenation will happen with those demographics.</div> <div><br></div> <div>Minnesota is decidedly liberal in its overall view, but it is not reliably "blue" any more.</div> <div><br></div> <div>I wouldn't plan on a Republican debacle in November. Slippage?, yes. Meltdown?, no.</div> <div><br></div> <div>Keith</div> </body> </html>