I have noticed some conversation on this Blog and other blogs lately about the South and whether to ignore it or to some how pander to it.
Well as someone who considers themselves a Southerner who lives in the South I have some thoughts on this want to do something or nothing about my homeland.
I want this to be a very open dialogue that incorporates all kinds of ideas and opinion on what to do; I think this diary is a much broader political debate that really begs the question; what is politics to Americans today?
What does it take to be a Southerner?
Must one be born in the South? And by that I would guess we are referring to the original 13 states that made up the Confederate States of America.
What if you move to the South and live there longer than you have lived anywhere else?
I ask this question because we talk about the South a lot politically. People who are not and never want to be Southerners want to both capture it for their ideology and bend it for their political gain. Those of us that are derived from the South and call ourselves Johnny Rebs want to move as a collective group to enforce some sort of political theology on the rest of the country, make them prisoners of our perverse universe.
One has to wonder that now since we are nearly 150 years removed from the surrender of General Robert E. Lee, at Appomattox Courthouse in sleepy Central Virginia, if there is even a discernable South left to be moved collectively.
Yes, I know every Southern state from the days of Lee, Longstreet, Jackson and Hill went Republican in the 2004 election. The ballot had a guy who claims to be a pure Texan running against a Yankee from of all places Massachusetts. Is that really why those 13 states all went Red though?
Is it because we of the South are very religious even more than the rest of the country and worry more about "values", than other Americans, in every aspect of our life including those we pull levers for on the first Tuesday after a Monday in November?
Traditionally Southerners are supposed to be fiercely independent, stubborn to a fault even. So why do we all seem to vote the same way. Do Gays, Guns and God drive us like a heard?
I 'm asking these questions and beginning this dialogue because I doubt the South can be looked at as one type of people anymore that moves politically with the winds of conservatism or racism. I think the Republicans and Democrats together are going to witness a huge back lash if we do not start addressing this nation and her issues as one concern, and stop pandering to citizens regionally.
I view certain issues as rising up and actually mattering to America collectively. We are not a regional country anymore. We have allowed technology from the internet to media to transform us into a culture that worries about issues specifically based on our ideology. Our neighbors are not geographically next door, but are on our Instant Messaging lists.
Wal-Mart is the number one issue facing people in this country. It continues to drive small business owners out of business. Lack of quality jobs forces people to have to work for Wal-Mart at 30 hours a week for $7.00 an hour meaning no health care and not enough money to cover their education and credit debts. They can only afford to shop at Wal-Mart. It is a relentless cycle that people will become angry about shortly. I believe this will begin the drive to a real discussion about a Nationalized Affordable Heath Care System that covers everyone.
The number 2 issue out there is traffic. We will all soon realize that if our government does not do something to force an investment in alternative energy resources we will be defunct as a nation. How much longer will we sit in traffic breathing in the putrid fumes that makes us sick and irritable? Something has to be done or Social Security's looming problems will pale in comparison to our oil addiction.
The number three issue will be the inability of people to have a lifestyle that they view as meeting their expectations. People will tolerate debt and the rising costs to borrow money for a while, but eventually the public will grow quite angry about being poor. The only way that can be prevented is with another tech boom like we saw in the 90's. People can only hide from their financial problems for so long in church before we must face them head on.
This is one person's humble view on how we can stop worrying about the South collectively and why we should stop looking at this country regionally and why a 50 state national political strategy must be adopted by Democrats. We cannot align by regionally specific issues we must be broader in our appeal together. Of course this all filters down to expanding your virtual world and recruiting the geographical neighbor into your ideology so that politically you can maneuver.
Hopefully Dean and the DNC are working on this. But I think we must be doing the door knocking now. Democrats have to start doing the dirty work of getting in people's faces on a daily basis if we expect to make our Quality of Life better in the South and the rest of the United States.
