I have to say, in principle I find this nationalistic stigmatization of a particular group dubious. And as a redneck myself am mildly offended--now that I live in enlightened NYC it is apparent that liberal claims of superiority are mostly phony. Take racism. In my home town--Elko, NV--of course people are verbally racist. On the other hand I've never heard of or observed prejudicial police harassment--'white trash' Latinos and Native Americans are more or less harassed equally. Here, if you spend any amount time in an African American neighborhood, you see it everywhere. I've pointed this out before, but the situation has not improved, enlightened liberals go on pretending they don't notice. And what about the ghettoization of the city--the effective segregation in schools--the destruction of community gardens? Where does this enlightenment manifest itself?
Incidentally, people in my home town consistently vote Republican because it is in there interest to do so--it's a gold-mining town and historically the price of gold has been higher under Republican administrations (not that I personally consider the Democrats a worthy alternative), probably not coincidentally do to HW Bush having a major stake in one of the mines. But there is also a healthy mistrust of the government there, which I think is good in principle, even if it leads, undeniably, to some silly actions such as the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade.
I think authors like this need to do some homework before libeling large sectors of the public; people who are just struggling to get by like everyone else.
> From: dhenwood at panix.com
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:46:03 -0500
> Subject: [lbo-talk] rednecks disappearing!
>
> <http://wonkette.com/405437/nate-silvers-magic-numbers-prove-rednecks-dont-exist
> >
>
> OUR VANISHING CRETINS
> Nate Silver’s Magic Numbers Prove Rednecks Don’t Exist
>
> Statistics freak Nate Silver was supposed to go away after the
> election, which he rigged with algebra or something in order to create
> the first black president, which is the ultimate political statistic,
> for masturbating. Now the fivethirtyeight.com sensation has a column
> in the gay fashion glossy, Esquire. It’s kind of interesting!
> Basically, Nate has figured out — using his patented number voodoo —
> that the worst people in America are literally disappearing, leaving a
> nation of sexy multi-racial city slickers who drive hybrids and do
> anal on first dates.
>
> The voting numbers show that Karl Rove’s barely successful “focus on
> the rural dummies” scheme in 2000 and 2004 just don’t work anymore,
> especially when the Democrats run a good candidate instead of, say, a
> wooden dildo.
>
> So, while the nasty dirt clown Sarah Palin may have really enjoyed
> campaigning in the “pro-America parts of America,” actual Americans
> all live in the towns and the increasingly complex/urbanized suburbs,
> which Obama won by 10.5 million votes and 2%, respectively.
>
> Obama accumulated a margin of victory of approximately 10.5 million
> votes in urban areas (see chart), far bettering John Kerry’s 3.6
> million. Obama improved his performance not only among black and
> Latino voters but also among urban whites, with whom he performed 9
> points better than Kerry.
>
> Obama also won each of the seventeen most densely populated states, a
> list that includes such nontraditional battlegrounds as Virginia,
> North Carolina, and Indiana. (One hidden advantage of urban areas:
> They’re easier to canvass to get the vote out.) By contrast, for all
> their bluster about small towns, John McCain and Sarah Palin beat
> Obama by just 2.4 million votes in rural areas, actually a bit worse
> than the 4.3-million-vote margin that Bush racked up in 2004.
>
> So, not only is the total number of rural voters down significantly —
> from 35% of the electorate in 1992 to just 21% today — McCain and
> Palin only won the diminished pool of mouth-breathing white trash by
> about half as many votes as Bush did, four years earlier.
>
> Ha, America’s dumb/disappearing hillbillies don’t even know the
> meaning of “schadenfreude,” which is German, for Fail.
>
> How Obama Really Won the Election [Esquire]
> <http://www.esquire.com/features/data/how-obama-won-0209>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
_________________________________________________________________ Are you a PC? Upload your PC story and show the world http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/122465942/direct/01/