It's not 100% accurate or even 100% authentic, but it isn't unlike the South I grew up in. Me, I was born in Nashville and now live in Austin. How could those two towns be a cultural consumer's dream?
What about when Katrina hit...? It was said to be "the 9/11 for liberals." I think nationalism and even provincialism (nationalism writ small) are dangerous. But I'll be damned if my blood didn't boil when I saw how that town was left to rot, treated like was so much disposable garbage. "Those are my people," I strangely felt.
I have mentioned rock 'n roll & delta blues before. Products of the south. We just saw The Cramps' singer dying. Their first LPs were recorded in Memphis, by choice. Any idea why?
I think identity politics and provincialism suck, in the final instance. But there is also a kind of NYC elitism, or more largely a Left Coast and East Coast kind of myopia, that intrudes here on LBO now and again. Bush played at being Texan - he even dressed up for the part - and did the state no favors by his reputation; but he was trained to manage at Yale and the family has Northeastern roots if it matters. I don't see LBJ's "Great Society" programs redound to Texas' political reputation. LBJ was the fuck-up who pursued the Vietnam War.
Texas also has Emma Tenayuca, Lucy Parsons (a founder of the IWW and widow of Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons), Roky Erickson, and even Dallas began as a French socialist settelement (which I used to love pointing out to folks). Molly Ivins. Jim Hightower wrote a recent great piece on how the revisionist history of FDR is actually an attack on modern Keynesian stimulus. Liberals, yes, But Texans, too. In any event, I am not a good real estate salesman.
I hated Dallas and couldn't wait to bolt to Austin, it is true. It is not so much a "my region vs. your region" pissing contest I am interested in. It is just, yet again, a response to some folks on the list taking an unfair dump on the South. We're not NYU grad students, I know, but come on.
-B.
Doug Henwood wrote:
"Ok, you resident Texans. From a distance, much seems alarming about your state. I'm convinced that Austin is a cool and civilized place, but having seen Dallas and Houston up close, I'm guessing that Austin is a glaring exception. Am I missing other pleasant or admirable features?"