Joe Bageant,
There been a lot of talk these days of southern and "redneck" culture coming from a group of people that have been at times called "Borderers", "Scots-Irish", "Scotch-Irish", "Ulsterman", "Orangemen", "Protestant-Ulsterites" etc. The elders in my family used the term "Dirty Black Protestants from the North", to describe this tribe but I'd rather deal talk about their garbage as it is today.
Though coming from the "tribe" James Webb oddly calls "The Irish Themselves", I can tell you right now that the claim their bullshit, then or now, ever had much to do with Celt culture or values has about as much to do with facts as your average Nazi propaganda film. (And I've watched that tricky propagandist James Webb for many years. He's a liar. He invented that whole shtick about blaming protestors for the problems of Vietnam vets, but partcipated in the Agent Orange cover up as Reagan's Secretary of the Navy.) And that Webb's stupid characterization of all liberals being these hoity toity WASPs and Boston Brahmins, out to oppress the poor Scots-Irish just doesn't hold much water with me. In the real New England (as opposed to the New England in the fantasies of many Southerners) the real Boston Brahmins and rich WASPs are the Republican minority in most states including Kerry's Massachuesetts. Although I was brought up in Arizona and currently live in Washington my parents are both from Boston and many of my relatives still live there, so I know that scene better than Webb does. Or at least better than duplicitous Webb will admit to in his multi-decade propaganda games!
Back to the present. Having known a few Ulsterite-Americans who also defected from the right of Attila the Hun, to the left of center, I've seen that many of them have the same damn fool prejudices you do. They assume, like you do, that every "white person" not to the right of Attila the Hun is automatically filthy rich!
Once I knew an Ulsterite American who assumed of an anti-war group I was involved in that, "All these people have money and comfortable lives. They are such fucking idealists because they are too godamn comfortable." I knew them better. Out of two dozen people at least two were on welfare, one on disability, four more had food stamps, and three on top of that were food bank regulars. I know because I was at the food bank with all of them twice a week. And to check your possible Ulsterite cultural blinders, none of these people were "poor by choice". Every single one of us, wanted a better job than we had or couldn't get a living wage jobs because of nasty personal misfortunes. I wanted and needed a better job at that time. But even those of us with less than perfect lives cared enough about our country to get involved -- unlike so many fucking rednecks and Bush voters who just want to watch bombs drop and the deficit top millions no matter the consequences.
Both this Ulsterite American and I were poor. But for some reason he lacked the ability to see others people's problems unless they were either rednecks like him or people of color. His assumption that all poor people were either dark skinned or rednecks blinded him to the reality of several fair faces right in front of him who didn't act like rednecks but did wear second hand clothes everywhere but work, drive crummy cars or ride the bus, went to food banks, or sometimes had much worse problems.
AND IT MADE ME MAD! His assumption that he was the only one in the group with financial difficulties made me want to smack him upside the head several times.
And I see it in self-described "rednecks" all the time. And it never fails to make me want to smack them.
So if you want to convince people that these borderers are to blame for the darker side of American culture, go ahead. But for the love of God, and your own credibility, don't go around pretending that all the crummy jobs and low incomes in this country are either cultural rednecks, immigrants, or people of color, because that is so far from the truth it isn't funny.
And anyone who's seen the numbers by region can tell you that the much talked about "poor whites voting Republican" is mostly a Southern phenomena. Republican voters outside the Bible Belt are mostly upper middle class, rich, or fundamentalist. The real problem with poor whites outside the South is just low voter turnout.
And don't pretend that there is some "logical" reason for the war loving and Republican voting of these idiots, because there isn't. Since non-fundamentalist poor whites outside the South don't often do these things, most of the "logical explanations" you've given for this redneck bullshit just aren't convincing.
Secondly don't pretend that all Ulster Americans, rednecks, and others of that stripe are all poor. Because they weren't and aren't. Andrew Jackson, our first Ulsterite-American President (and war criminal extraordinaire), was a wealthy slave owner. All other "Irish-American" presidents except Kennedy were of Ulsterite origins. And if you think there are no Orange-Americans sitting on the boards of Fortune 500 companies I have a bridge to sell you.
Also if you want to blame NASCAR on these "Borderers" and still want to paint them all as dirt poor, they you really have some explaining to do. Recently some idiot wanted to build a NASCAR track outside of Seattle. When people in the town fought this -- and won at least for now -- some squawking right wing pundits called these people "elitists". At the time I had a decent job at last, so I got on line, made some long distance phone calls and did a little experiment. I checked NASCAR ticket prices all over the country. And the cheapest thing I could find was $49 for a "bargain" back row seat. The vast majority were over $100, and plenty were pushing a grand or more. I also saw $40 dollars just for parking, and $20 for a tour of the track.
To compare it with the "snobby elitist" pastimes in my expensive town, you can visit a very plush art museum called SAM for $12, and even get in for free the first Thursdays and Saturdays each month. And for less than most of those damn NASCAR tickets you can get a a full year pass, to both the aquarium and the zoo for a WHOLE FAMILY.
The next person who calls anyone an elitist for not liking NASCAR or not wanting the noise in their neighborhood can just eat my shorts.
To make some other points you overlook, not all colleges are "elite universities" and plenty of good schools that can provide degrees and scholarships aren't Ivy League. (I got a scholarship at Northern Arizona University, and received a better education there than my Wellesley cousin.) If Bush is rich and did things like kill frogs with firecrackers, then you can't blame poverty and "borderer" heritage for his shit or that of his voters. I'm white and you'd damn well better believe I'd kill a hog with a gun instead of knife wrestling it, as would anyone with a brain in their head.
Maybe you'll read this and maybe you won't. But after another goodamn Ulsterite American kept sending me your posts, I had to respond before you confuse too many people.
Grace
Washington State
