A Red State Paradox

[Leilla]

Billings, Montana -- It is sickening. Montana is not what it used to be. Small family-owned farms have been taken over by corporate behemoths. Public forests have been squandered and sold to the highest bidder. Racism is ever increasing. Poverty is rampant. Native Americans are being corralled onto even tighter plots of land. But however disheartening it all may seem, there are still voices of hope rumbling across the vast Big Sky.

Montana, for some anomalous reason, doesn’t clearly fall within the predictable Blue state/Red state dichotomy. We aren’t in Kansas anymore and even Thomas Frank would be baffled. Don’t get me wrong though; this is still Bush country, as anyone with one eye open can detect. “W” stickers are flaunted on oversized SUV bumpers. Yellow “Support the Troop” magnets have been slapped on most every Ford truck. There is no question that these flag waving Montanans voted overwhelmingly in favor of George W. Bush last November. Republicans here are a dime a dozen.

I should know, I grew up out here on the eastern side of the continental divide in Billings, which is the largest city in Montana with a population of 90,000-plus. Billings, dubbed America’s “Crank Capital” by Time in the late-1990s, is nestled beneath the shadows of 500 foot sand stone cliffs. The snow-capped Rockies are due west. The mighty Yellowstone River cuts through the south end of town. It’s searing hot in the summer and bitter cold in winter. A forty-minute drive southeast will park you in the impoverished and desolate Crow Agency (Indian reservation) -- which houses the memorial for the Battle of the Little Big Horn where the great Indian slaughterer General George A. Custer met his much-deserved fate. There is a bloody ubiquitous history about this land. The aura of which can be troubling for those who know its past......

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar05/Frank0314.htm

[kiraboo]

1. That's a very interesting article.

It makes the point that many here already know: many red-staters seem to vote reflexively, against their own self-interest and even against their values. It is quite possible that the two-term presidency of the Shrub will be what it takes to cure them of their masochism.

[DorianGreene]

2. How is this measured?

"Racism is ever increasing"

seems kind of subjective to me.

[kiraboo]

3. The whole piece is an opinion. But

if I were to measure racism it would be by looking at official complaints, hate crimes etc. Maybe you could contact the author and ask for clarification.