The Other White Flight: Can Democrats ever regain the support of Southern whites?(BARF ALERT)

Charlotte Creative Loafing ^ | January 21-27, 2004 | Kevin Griffis

[The Black Knight]

Allow me to vent my anger...

Watching him light up Winstons and listening to his adventures in syntax, some might pigeonhole Sparks after about 10 seconds. They'd be wrong

By the very way you describe him, you already have pigeonholed him, you elitist scumbag.

One minute, he's spewing Fox News/talk radio cliches about "big government" and school prayer. But the next minute, he's speaking eloquently on the real problems he and his neighbors face in 21st century rural America.

It's good to see that big government and school prayer aren't important. Jerk. And of course, it's Fox News Channel for us dumb-dumbs.

And why in the world is he going to vote for a president based on a side issue like which candidate hates gay marriages?

Maybe, just maybe, it's not a side issue for us Bible thumping rednecks. Ever thought of that?

Driving east into Seneca, SC, on US. 76, you're greeted by the corpulent majesty of the local Super Wal-Mart, a monstrosity with a barber shop, McDonald's, grocery store, shotguns and an eye doctor. Everything under one roof.As you exit the town, headed toward Clemson, you see 76's other most conspicuous roadside attraction, Tiger Tails: Dancers Wanted. It's a strip club popular with the over-40 set. For anyone tempted to go in, there's four or five religious radio stations to choose from as you make the 10-minute drive between Sam Walton's packed economy of scale and Tiger Tails.

Like I said, with "writers" like this in the South, who needs someone from Philly bashing us.

Instead, the opposite appears to be happening -- a sort of political paralysis that's reflected in the blank stares of Seneca's Wal-Mart employees..

Gee, I guess I'm on Free Republic and a conservative because I'm stupid now, is that it?

In the Super Wal-Mart, Adam Canady, from nearby Walhalla, hurriedly opens box after box of CDs amid the buzz of customers in the electronics section. His smock is festooned with small pins and his nametag. He looks up from the drudgery and practically sticks out his chest when he says he'll vote for Bush. "He's the only one who's shown himself capable of leading," Canady says.

The only intelligent thing in this pile of rubbish. I don't know who this guy is, but I like him already.

In return, they got a free-spending president who gave them a $300 tax rebate while he lowered taxes for the richest Americans to their lowest levels since 1932, a government deficit billed to their children and their children's children, and an invitation to send their kids to a war of disputable necessity.

Gotta love that unbiased reporting, especially when this is the front page article.

Forever, it seems, Southern demagogues managed to blame the "other" -- mainly blacks or Yankees

No, just liberal Yankees and blacks who push through excessive and unconstitutional programs which suck the money and life from the veins of ALL hard working people, not just Southerners.

Large swaths of Southern religion have failed to fight such demagoguery. Indeed, many churches have employed it themselves, substituting Christ's message of love and justice for the self-help gospel of personal wealth -- along with an emphasis on casting stones at others.

I wonder if he'll repeat that line to St. Peter?

That's the kind of life he's had to live, one where sacrifices have to be made -- a life unlike the runaway fiscal policy of the president he supports.

Since Democrats NEVER have had bad fiscal policy (coughcough) CALIFORNIA, NEWYORK, MASSACHUSSETTS (coughcough)

Then, Young attributes the change to Clinton's sex scandals and "because the Republicans have so effectively characterized us as free-wheeling, tax-spending, social-promoting freeloaders."

And the wrong point of this arguement would be...?

"It just . . . seemed to be a dwindling of responsibility," she says. "People more and more just seem to be looking at their own individual self-interests rather than the larger interests that may be necessary for all of us to live together."

Yeah, we should all give up individualism and be collective minded, kinda like on a commune. Hey, we can call it...COMMUNISM!

[Old Sarge]

Way to play "Stop The Tape!", Knight. Stole my thunder.

"Support of Southern Whites?" They've got the black vote - what do they need us for?

[cripplecreek]

"It just . . . seemed to be a dwindling of responsibility," she says. "People more and more just seem to be looking at their own individual self-interests rather than the larger interests that may be necessary for all of us to live together."



we are borg. resistance is futile. prepare to be assimilated.


naturally theres the usual whine that FOX rules the world.

[Moose4]

Ping. Make sure you've got some Pepto handy.

}:-)4

[The Old Hoosier]

It is amazing that liberals think their policies will benefit the poor. You can make things "fairer" by raising taxes on upper-income earners (mostly small businesses owners), but you'll only take away poor people's jobs. And I'm sorry, but $50,000 goes a long way in rural Georgia.

This is my favorite line:

"Bush ain't just standing back saying we've got to give more money to the poor to stimulate the economy. That ain't what makes it work."

This "yokel" demonstrates that he understands economics much better than the author.

[Still Thinking]

"Republicans, the other white meat." ;-)

[JohnnyZ]

Few even know that Edwards, the North Carolina senator who moved as a child from Seneca to Robbins, NC, is a favorite son.

"Oh . . . JOHNNY Edwards. Yeah, we know him."

"Favorite? Who's he favorite of? We ain't even sure whose son is he."

[Who dat?]

To pay for college for his daughter, Carli, he refinanced his $26,000 house, when he had just $5,000 left on the mortgage. After refinancing, he owed $45,000.

I like how it’s now an expectation that mommy and daddy will pay for college. I paid for my own by working and scheduling classes around work. My wife paid for hers by getting a full scholarship (it paid for almost everything). For spending money she had a waitress job and worked in a printing shop at one point. I have many, many relatives that either attended college while in the military, or after they got out for the non-career guys.

[Seruzawa]

This is encouraging. As long as liberals so totally misread and misunderstand where these people are coming from and what and why they believe things the liberals will never be able to reach them at all.

They'll never reach southerners if they think that having shotguns in Wal-Mart is somehow remarkable.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Apparently he thinks that Southerners are so stupid as to not know when they have been insulted, derided, and stereotyped.

[Blue Screen of Death]

That's all right. As soon as more of these southern white boys discover the pleasures of Charmin, many of these newspaper writers will be out of jobs.

[The Black Knight]

I paid for my own by working and scheduling classes around work.

I'm doing that right now. Graduate in December. I know how ya feel, buddy. ;-)

My wife paid for hers by getting a full scholarship (it paid for almost everything). For spending money she had a waitress job and worked in a printing shop at one point.

My friend has a full scholarship, too. 3.9 GPA after taking 52 HOURS in 3 SEMESTERS. She waitresses for spend money. She doesn't work in a print shop, though. And she's WAY too high class to ever be MY wife. Guess the similarities stop there. Hehehe.

[The Black Knight]

That's just TOO funny.

[suzyq5558]

Sorry BK I just couldnt finish this article .it really got my dandruff up. what a snide,condesending arse this so-called journalist is.

[Still Thinking]

"It just . . . seemed to be a dwindling of responsibility," she says. "People more and more just seem to be looking at their own individual self-interests rather than the larger interests that may be necessary for all of us to live together."

I love it!!! In typical "1984" style, they've reversed the meaning of the word responsibility from self reliance to a belief in handouts from nanny state politicians. Literally makes me want to puke.

I flipped past a "documentary" on PBS a few months back where they were talking about how FDR started using the words "liberty" and "freedom" in connection with his liberty and freedom stealing programs, where they had previously meant the choice to take care of your own business without the risk of being interfered with by the government. The narrator seemed to think this was just hunky dory. I kept flipping before I needed to clean off the screen.

[CTOCS]

"national Democrats, even the moderate ones, seem little more than the equivilant of exotic reptiles........"

Priceless!!!

[catpuppy]

He pulls in more than $45,000 a year from Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation, where he works as a warehouseman. But his worn face and ragged English betray a life of hard work and hard times ... His older kids' college tuition has jumped (an average of 14 percent in the last year). And, if he's like Sparks, 30 percent of what he managed to stash away for retirement evaporated in a stock market fiasco fueled by corporate greed that a little more government oversight could have prevented.

45 thou per year goes a long way in Blairsville, Georgia. I doubt that Mr. Sparks would trade his life/job for that of the author. Furthermore, Georgia's Hope Scholarship (funded by the lottery) pays tuition and fees for any student maintaining a "B" average. Finally, the "stock market fiasco" (whatever happened to the Reagan-Bush "Decade of Greed"?) "fueled by corporate greed" had nothing to do with corporate greed. It had everything to do with the very human tendency to want something for nothing that led to speculation by many including, evidently, Mr. Sparks.

[johnmorris886]

I am a Conservative Yankee who now lives in the South. I don't make a lot of money, but my family doesn't go hungry. We don't vote on who is going to give us "free money" (never mind that no money is free) instead we vote on who is going to uphold the moral standards of this nation.

We Vote Pro-Life, Pro-Gun, Pro-Family, Anti-Homosexual and Anti-Immorality.

Those are really the only issues that matter to us. Lower taxes and other economic things are nice, but those are only icing on the cake. If a candidate wants to destroy one of the pillars of society (marriage) I don't care if they would eliminate ALL Taxes, They won't get my vote.

[WOSG]

Ah, this is one of those leftist City Paper type of newspapers, where they wear their bias on their shirt.

It certainly drips with liberal contempt for all things culturally and politically conservative.

Sad that the author cant get out of the box of his own biases.