General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Regarding things from the south. [View all]rrneck
(17,671 posts)Nobody started the culture wars. They were always here. They will always be here. People will always have conflicting attitudes about how to live. That's a good thing. Creative solutions are found in conflicting ideas.
I think the problem is not culture wars, but the war profiteering of the 1%. I lived most of my life in the south and southerners aren't really any different from anybody else. They work for a living, get married, have babies and generally do what humans have been doing for a million years. I left the south and was glad to do so because I can only talk about stock cars and deer hunting for about fifteen minutes and that's it. I got really tired of hearing some asshole say "praise Jesus" every whipstich. I live in a very liberal town and now instead of deer hunting it's fancy bikes and yoga. Instead of some asshole saying "praise Jesus" it's some asshole talking about "energy". For all it's liberal pretensions it's still an upscale community full of liberals that make money in the market and flip houses in real estate bubbles. Liberals around here are just as avaricious, sanctimonious and self deluded as anybody in the south. And there are entire industries devoted to telling them how right they are to think that way.
How do you get poor white people to admit they're poor white people who need help? Don't be condescending. We give the political right the best weapon they have, and they use it well. They accuse us of being elitist ivory tower jerks out of touch with the reality of people's lives, and we give them examples to point at every day.
They are not poor. We are poor. They are not ignorant. We are ignorant. They don't need help. We need help.