“Where I live. I’ve noticed the same thing for years. It’s all about them, and if they’re not making it, blame blacks, or liberals (mainly liberals, because there are hardly any blacks anywhere in sight) or people needing any form of public assistance, or of course “illegal immigrants” stealing all the jobs they won’t take in any case.
“They’re the heart and soul of knee-jerk American fascism, and they’ll comprise the core of the party that forms around those reactionary values as soon as the effective rightwing populist rises up out of the heartland. If Obama can preempt that reflex by appealing to them from a quasi-liberal angle (and I agree that Edwards was doing it better, and Kucinich better still, but the centrists at the DNC weren’t going to permit that, so those two rabble rousers were predictably stifled), I’m for him. Anything that can pacify the disenfranchised rural white conservatives is a good thing for the progressive cause. Let him throw them a few bones.”
Another rural writer who doesn’t identify what state he or she comes from, pointss to the role of the corporate media, which has been busy 24/7 painting Obama’s latest comments as a huge gaffe, even as it is seeming to have no impact on the polls in Pennsylvania.:
“We seem incapable of having that kind national conversation without running into the resistance of an activist press that pushes opinion and propaganda as if were newsworthy facts. Senator Obama seems to offer us an alternative to the bought and paid for crap that has passed for political discourse in this great nation. And yes, I’m one of those pissed off country bumpkins who is tired and frustrated at watching everything I love and care for reduced to a commodity that can be traded away by a system that offers allegiance to no one. Call me old-fashion, but I need to work and I like to earn my own way and over the last decade it has gotten harder and harder. I want change, now.”
Meanwhile, one Pennsylvania writer weighs in saying:
“I did grow up in a town in Levittown, PA. There’s Bristol, Croydon, Tullytown, Bensalem, Feasterville and Trevose. Albeit these are outlying ‘burbs of Philly, yet this part of Bucks County was built on the steel mill, paper mill and 3M. M Night makes his flix in many of the aforementioned towns now because he grew up in Bensalem. All have long been closed, I do think the steel mill belonged to a Brit company for a time.
“Awhile ago few drunken white boys decided to strike up a conversation with a gay young man, lured him to their car, slit his throat and set the car on fire. Nice fellows. Drugs are the norm out here, not the exception, crime is rampant, old folks are being robbed by the use of push-in robberies, which have gotten horrible now.
“I no longer live in PA but am back often to visit mom, grandma and my younger sister, and I can report that Senator Obama is 100% correct in saying they are bitter, and about their getting guns and clinging fervently to religion.
“What in hell is wrong with him stating the truth?”
Says another country resident:
“Until poor, rural, whites wake up from their stupor, they will continue to be used by conservatives as cannon fodder in the culture wars.
“To my fellow crackers in the countryside - if you vote republican and you are not a millionaire/billionaire, you are a sucker - nothing less.”
Finally comes word from another Pennsylvania correspondent, who says:
“I am also happy to hear a politician finally describe with pin-point accuracy the mindset of the large majority of rural Pennsylvania voters. I live in rural PA, and in my job in social services I meet with low income rural residents in eleven west central and north central counties here on a daily basis. Obama is absolutely right. They fear all outsiders, they fear change, they fear anyone who isn’t one of them, and they blame whatever is wrong with the world on what they fear. I have lived in the same small town (less than 4,000 people) for more than 25 years. I am still considered an outsider. I am tolerated, because I stick to myself (aside from performing my job, which is appreciated) and don’t try to change anything. But I will never be accepted. I was warned before I moved here that life with the “woodsies” would be lonely and frustrating. Until this election, it hasn’t been a problem. But just last week, as I was leaving the beauty parlor, I mentioned that I was supporting Obama. It was clear, by their reactions, that I need to go somewhere else next time I need a haircut, or I could end up regretting it.”
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