From my blog,
Corrente.
In the face of this, a young girl reports to her village's elders that she's had a dream, a sacred vision. In it, the Ancestors of Xhosa tradition have come to her and bid her to reveal this prophecy: if the Xhosa kill off all their cattle, their only remaining real wealth, then all the Xhosa dead will arise, and drive off the Europeans from Africa and Xhosa lands once and for all. She convinces her village elders and eventually most of the Xhosa nation of the truth of her vision. They proceed to kill off almost all their cattle, and subsequently starve, and completely falter as an independent nation. A few years later, the Europeans forcibly resettle what is left of the Xhosa people and take over the last of their independent lands, completing the conquest of southern Africa.
Crossposted at
Corrente.
Atrios is covering the dust up over Bai's piece about the new "Off-Center" book, which I've not read yet but which apparently discusses issues near and dear to my heart. Halfdan, a reader at Atrios, sums up what I think is the heart of the matter brilliantly:
Frank's thesis is that right-wing Republicans have managed to merge political conservatism with religious conservatism, and the result is that Christian rural voters are forced to choose between their Christian identity (pretty much all they have left) and a Godless liberalism.
That may be ignorance, but it's certainly not stupidity, and Frank never implies that. If you were working two jobs and had three kids and your only social outlet were church, then there's really not an opportunity for you to be as enlightened as everyone here.
I'm fond of saying that the two most dangerous forces in this country are religion and TV, and if you agree with Halfdan's summation of Frank's work, I think there's support for my beliefs.
The kicker is "pretty much all they have left." I once read a really, really depressing book called "The Dead Will Arise." It's the story of native Africans facing the ever-encroaching forces of colonialism in Xhosa lands in southern Africa. Basically, the short version of the book goes like this: the Europeans are taking more and more land and resources from the native peoples, and the Xhosa are among the last nations to retain a degree of political autonomy. All their traditions and beliefs are increasingly challenged by European technology and military supremacy; it's clear that it's only a matter of time before white colonialists will do to the Xhosa what they have done to every other previously independent African peoples.
In the face of this, a young girl reports to her village's elders that she's had a dream, a sacred vision. In it, the Ancestors of Xhosa tradition have come to her and bid her to reveal this prophecy: if the Xhosa kill off all their cattle, their only remaining real wealth, then all the Xhosa dead will arise, and drive off the Europeans from Africa and Xhosa lands once and for all. She convinces her village elders and eventually most of the Xhosa nation of the truth of her vision. They proceed to kill off almost all their cattle, and subsequently starve, and completely falter as an independent nation. A few years later, the Europeans forcibly resettle what is left of the Xhosa people and take over the last of their independent lands, completing the conquest of southern Africa.
When Halfdan says "pretty much all they have left," I want you to think of the Xhosa. Republicans have spent the last 25 years doing away with all the things that once made America a great place for the working class: decent public education, secure manufacturing and farm jobs, responsible government that meets the basic needs of the people, a critical media that calls out politicians who don't, and balanced public political and social discourse that addresses the concerns of the little guy. These things are effectively dead in rural America today, and if you're in Kansas or upstate Wisconsin or delta Mississippi, times are tough, and have been for a long time. I grew up in the country, and I cringe every time I go back, to see just how poorly a lot of folks are doing these days. The problem is that for many, they don't even really know that once, life in rural working class America was much, much better.
Once upon a time, a family could farm and prosper, and a man could support a wife and two children in relative comfort on the salary from one job at the tractor store. Small business owners kept successful shops that survived and thrived on the business the people in a small town brought, and people bought goods that were for the most part made in some other part of the US. All that is gone today, with corporations buying the last of the family-owned farmland, Wal-Mart driving Mom and Pop out of business, and Chinese slave labor replacing what was once a healthy US manufacturing base. So is it any surprise that in the face of all that loss, "red state" rural Americans are clinging desperately and passionately to the only thing that hasn't been taken away from them (religion)?
As much as I hate fundie beliefs and think that it's my enemy and the enemy of freedom, I can't deny that there's a logic in the way people embrace an extreme belief system in the face of deprivation. I'm going to do a lot of thinking about this, as I don't really have answers about how someone like me can effectively communicate with someone who is a red-stater like the kind Halfdan is talking about. But the goal should be clear: we've got to find a way, a language they can accept, which will show them that they can keep their beliefs and participate in a return to prosperity and true security.
Personally, I think the first step is to infiltrate churches, and call out hypocritical preachers and TV con artists who warp religious belief and scripture to mirror Republican talking points. If you've followed religious news on the Internet, you know how many of these pulpit pseudofascists are often ripping off their churches, flying around in private jets, and fucking little boys. In a way, pulpit Bushians are the worst kind of Republicans, because they do what all the Cornerites and Beltway whores can never do: speak in the language of red state America. Somehow, we've got to find a way to show their audience members that they're only doing so because they're on the payroll.
I'm floundering, because I don't really have a plan or that many ideas about countering Halfdan's prognosis. But I think it's worth thinking about, and if this Off-Center book addresses these points, than I'm going to have to read it. Help me out readers, and tell me what you think we can do. I want to help rural America before the last of their sacred cows are dead.
