Dear fellow socialist, we must address the core issue of our failings over
the past quarter-century. Let's face it; we don't get it. Do these hayseeds
want pollution, crummy schools, non-existent health-care, a selevtively-prosecuted drug-war that incarcerates their pacific neighbors, foreign mis-adventures
for which their sons and daughters must pay a blood price? Can't they see
that Reagan and the Bush dynasty represent a dystopic withdrawal of the
intellect? Don't they perceive that the Republicans are selling them up the
river economically for the trinkets of social issues (evolution-teaching, abortion,
prayer-in-school, for examples) upon which there is no progress to be had?
Do they not perceive Frist and Santorum to be the figures of shame that they
represent for our country? Et. Cetera?
Under my model, they are not benighted idiots, lambs awaiting slaughter.
Our national electoral failing can be traced to a single event. This model
is simper than any one of us could have hoped to guess at. Here goes:
Stand-up comics got on cable TV and referred to the hinterlands as "Fly-Over
Country." And all we did was laugh.
Stop for one moment and ponder how hurtful this must have been. This will
require you to 'play hick' for just a moment. Reflect upon some personal
reversal in your past that made you feel insignificant, revisit the pain.
Allow yourself to admit that there was some succor to be found in pondering
some retaliation, which you knew in your heart-of-hearts you were never
going to actually commit; the girl in high school who left you for the jock,
or the guy who dumped you for the homecoming queen. That thin, terse
rejection letter from that university you always dreamed of attending. That
unwitting, public faux pas you committed, the one you keep admonishing
yourself to forget.
Now, extend this feeling as though it didn't pertain to you individually,
but to yourself as a class. Your family, your friends, your church. Maybe,
you'd think: 'Stupid huh, we'll give em stupid.' 'Naive fundementalism,
we'll give 'em a taste of that.' 'They can take their charity, their
socialism, and stick it where the sun don't (sic) shine.' 'They are
laughing at us, we'll give 'em funny!'
A truly correct analytical model inevitably leads to the synthesis of a
course of action. To put it in the form of an object example: consider farm
aid. This group seeks to help the family farmer. Willie Nelson works for
it, as does Neil (a Canuck!) Young. Before they render any economic
assistance, they celebrate agrarian culture. It is very hard to help
someone without risking insulting them. Sensitive, successful artists know
this implicitly. And we need to take the lesson.
Wanna change things? Don't scold, don't remonstrate, and for heaven's sake
don't snigger. Hollywood, get off your asses and put 'fly over country' on
the television. Liberal news outlets, let's have more 'news from the
heartland.' We have really hurt these peoples' feelings; this is why they
are acting in the manner in which they are. We have to see politics as more
than a test. Of course, they are exploiting the Electoral College in a bid
for significance; this is the tool available to them!
That's all I have to say, really, except let's make an attempt to modify our
lexicon: Polite people don't use terms like "nigger," or "fag," or "kike"
earnestly in conversation anymore, because they are hurtful, don't
illuminate and feature a preponderant likelihood of 'blowback' for the
speaker. Perhaps we should put terms like "hillbilly" on a similar shelf!
At any rate, this model accounts for the exceptional case of the election of
Bill Clinton. Whatever else he was, he didn't seem to hold rural people in
contempt. Lest we forget, when Gen. Lee surrendered, Pres. Lincoln directed the band to play 'Dixie.'
