No wonder that "small town 'merica" likes bush

[Ernesto]

I just completed a road trip from Sacramento through Neveda, Utah, Montana & Wyoming & then back. I was amazed @ the lack of sophisticated newspapers.... For international news(?), USA Today seems to be the accepted standard. Just chalk full of crap about St Ronny, Lacy P, OJ & Paris Hilton. I felt like I was starving to death in a "real news vacuum". I read every small town paper that I could find. Not one progressive columnist in the whole bunch.... Of course, the TV I saw featured the spinning chimp over & over again........ All 'n all the people were nice, just politically "in the dark".

[defoliate_bush]

1. I agree.

I'm from small town 'merica. My small town is also in one of the most conservative states in America, Mississippi. Luckily, I live in a nice town that has a solid democratic population (Oxford). Conservatives in small towns don't know ANYTHING about politics. All they know is that Bush loves jeey-sus and hates the "evil gays". That is what they base their political affiliation around, which is really sad.

[tom_paine]

2. Don't forget "hatin' the Evil Nigras and Jews"

Don't forget that.

It must be very confusing to these Confederates why their Imperial Master Supports Israel so strongly.

Most of them know that th Busheviks support Israel because the Bible says it has to be existing for "the Rapture" to come.

[Nadienne]

4. Welcome to DU

Small town NW Iowa is the same - they can excuse Bush's lies because "he means well". "He's a god-fearin' man."

[buycitgo]

10. welcome to DU!

I spent an afternoon in Oxford about ten years ago......took pictures at the or admin building, where Ross Barnett tried to keep James Meredith out........saw William Faulkner's house.

but the best part was a picture I took of a car that was PLASTERED with left wing stickers.....at least fifteen, IIRC. wish I could find the pic.

from there I went to Philadelphia, and tried to find the spot where Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman were killed, but nobody I talked to knew where it was.

People were uniformly friendly, everywhere I went, despite the many uncomfortable questions I asked them about WTF was going on down there thirty years ago.

[newyawker99]

20. Hi defoliate_bush!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Ernesto]

21. Hi defoliate_bush

& welcome...... I like your "bleeding heart" line!

[Mountainman]

3. I drove to the east from California through the southern states in 1996

and I could not get one liberal point of view on the radio. Everything was anti Clinton or the religion or pro Bob Dole. So I stopped in Bob Dole's home town to see what those people were like.

Nice but politically unsophisticated.

[maxsolomon]

5. who volunteers to move there & persuade their fellow citizens?

there's a reason that liberals flee to the coasts. they grow tired of the cultural vacuum that is middle america.

[ArkDem]

6. Yes, it's really a shame that people in the small towns

are so ignorant.

[Mr. Blonde]

8. But just think how much

happier your life would be if you weren't concerned with politics. It would be nice if the entire population wanted to be informed, but for the most part they do not. You can't blame them for it. How many people are happy that they are informed? Most are angry about what they now know. Small town folk don't need that aggravation when there are more important things like the crops to worry about.

[Qanisqineq]

12. that sounds a little condescending

my dad is a farmer and he knows what is going on in the world and he cares.

[thebigidea]

13. so only big town folks have the luxury of keeping up with politics?

and what an absurd stereotype - that all small town folks are concerned with are crops.

[buycitgo]

15. hey big! you and Toliana are right, of course,

but there's a reason stereotypes are established

why do the red states STAY red?

sure, there are people everywhere who endeavor to remain informed; it's just that there are a whole lot LESS of them in red areas

that's not such a controversial idea, is it?

that said, there is a certain condescending tone in this here thread, though I think it's unintentional

BTW, I have your Gloria Borger Pop Art Portrait as my wallpaper.

VERY disturbing!

[Mr. Blonde]

16. I didn't say either of those things

I said they are not interested in as much in politics. It seems from all of my time in small towns that it was easier to just get up and go about your business than worry about what people are doing in DC. I also said LIKE the crops. I didn't limit it to just crops, clearly not every small town person is a farmer. I come from a small town and for the better part of my youth we were not in the farm and dairy business. I gave it as an example. To many there are more immediate things to worry about than politics.

[Qanisqineq]

19. I understand

that you didn't mean it the way it sounded. I grew up in a small town and later moved to a big city and now back to a small town. From my experience, people don't OPENLY talk about politics like I've seen in the city, it is more something they talk about quietly in small groups with close friends. Although I think that also depends on what part of the country.

[Kipepeo]

30. I didn't get that

from Mr. Blonde's post...just that freepers for the most part are willfully ignorant. Not all people in small towns. Hell, I am from the teeniest tiniest southern town and:

#1) there's nothing but freeper shit in the local paper
#2) to have the desire to reach outside of that is scary because it automatically makes you *different* from everyone around you and makes you REthink the "black and white, good and evil, what my government tells me (and what my parents have told me since I was a child) is right" mentality that makes the world make sense.

This is no indictment of PEOPLE exactly. It's an indictment of the overwhelming atmosphere around them that makes independent thought fucking scary and (the most 5th grade of all insults)"weird."

[mantis49]

7. I noted last night that the

Peoria Journal Star has not done one piece on the torture memos or the hearing with Ashcroft. People who rely wholly on small newspaper don't have a clue.

Someone wrote a letter to the editor that was in yesterday's paper that talked about it, but the average reader of that paper is probably thinking WTF?

[eissa]

9. Sad

Especially when you consider the lengths to which people who live under fascist regimes will go for information. Here we are in an open society with access to a variety of papers, books, websites, etc. and so many choose to remain in the dark.

[Qanisqineq]

11. yes, we are all ignorant hicks

:crazy:

[thebigidea]

14. how disengenuous - where does the post even imply something like that?

The post was about the lack of media variety. You dispute that?

[Qanisqineq]

18. I was being sarcastic

jeez. Lack of media variety... no, I am not disputing that. It is not absent though.

[buycitgo]

17. I have an idea......since we're headed there already.......

let's talk NASCAR!

remember those threads?

that was FUN!

[Skittles]

22. yup

the small town newspaper where I lived regularly featured columns written by politicians - of course they were all republican. And of course, there was a whole lot of lying going on.

[Gruenemann]

23. I grew up in small towns in some of the most

culturally benighted parts of south and west Texas, but we always had subscriptions to big city newspspers. Do people really read small town papers for anything besides the local gossip?

[Carson]

24. This is a problem

Being born and raised in a small Southern town, I can concur that the hometown newspapers are more for local news/gossip than anything else.

Let me give "ya'll" a tip, this isn't the early part of the twentieth century. The television and internet have brought the world into people's homes. We are a global community. No more will you find mountain folk hidden away from the world. Practically everyone has a t.v. and a dish perched on the side of the house.

The South or the "fly-over" states do not hold the monopoly on political ignorance.

Stop the stereotyping. It only hurts the objective.

[Oddman]

25. Forget Stepford Wives . . .

We live in Stepford America . . .


Cripes . . .I can’t even spell Preserdent . . .

[bo44]

26. Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto and most other valley towns are

arch conservative. If the kool aid pitcher says GOP then it will be inbibed without question. I live in Stockton, San Joaquin County. Alex Spanos has hosted bigtime fundraisers for Bunnypants Sr. and Jr., Herr Grop-i-nator and any other schmuck willing to bow and scrape in the name of greed and avarice. Local politicians have taken ass kissing Mr. Spanos to new lows.

[Only Me]

27. It is so true!! USA is small town standard and believe it or not

in my area, USA is considered a huge Liberal Rag!!!
VA is very RIGHTish.

[Tsiyu]

28. Now this is Ignorance

Why in hell or Hollywood would one believe that the small-town resident - the one who suffers first from job cuts and slashed social programs, the one who overwhelmingly lacks access to affordable, decent health care, the one whose schools are caving in under the weight of "Leave No Billionaire Behind," the one who's sons and daughters fight the rich man's war, the one whose number one cash crop is hemp - loves Bush?

Don't mistake a dearth of "timely, progressive" print articles in the news organ of any given locale for an ignorance of or indifference toward current events on the part of its residents. The closest town to me houses maybe 1500-2000 people. But they have the internet and cable just like you. And they supported Gore the last time around. Look in your own backyard. Who did your county support?

Perhaps you'd be better off convincing your own neighbors than making sweeping generalizations about people who live in small towns. So there. Plplplplplplplplpl!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bo44]

29. the part of the state spoken of is conservative

El Dorado County, between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe on Highway 50 has the highest concentration of white power nitwits in the West. Many of these folks moved into this area from all over urban Northern California.

[NightOwwl]

31. Sacramento

had two competing papers a few years ago. The right-wing Sacramento Union and the liberal leaning Sacramento Bee. Fortunately the Bee won the battle and the Union had to shut down because they didn't have enough subscribers. The Bee is considered quite liberal, and they live up to the reputation.