Reply #115: Well, My family all hails from the South

[Burma Jones]

And I've spent most of my life there. I now live in a technically Southern state (Maryland). I suppose Maddy's post is in response to the latest "Why we in the Blue States would just as soon you Red Staters would secede again" E-mail going around that I posted (and subsequently deleted after about 20 minutes) a couple days ago. I know that there are plenty of Red Northerners and Blue Southerners. But why do Californians, New Yorkers and Jerseyites have to put up with smears with humor and Southerners have to take out the white gloves and slap us with them? F'rinstance http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=3584426&mesg_id=3584426

The recently departed Shelby Foote made a comment in Ken Burns' Civil War series may shed some light on this. Describing some pre-battle pep-talk during WWII, he said that the CO stated that Americans had never lost a war. Well, the Southern soldiers came from a "country" that had lost a war and that had suffered the consequences for decades. Southerners had been defeated and a way of life (temporarily) destroyed.

Now, was that post meant to paint all of you with a broad brush? No, because I would be painting myself with the same brush. Are you defending your fellow state citizens, the ones that are regressive and repressive? Maybe. The post was satirical, it pointed to the tax revenue disparity between Progressive and Non-Progressive States amongst other issues to tweak folks like Trent Lott and his supporters.

That having been said, the people mainpulating us for their gain aren't Southerners, they're corporatists and have no allegiance to the USA, Red or Blue, except to the extent to which they can squeeze money from us.