Why rednecks may rule the world

BBC Radio4 - Today ^ | September 6th, 2008 | By Joe Bageant

[KarenMarie]

During this US election cycle we are hearing a lot from the pundits and candidates about "heartland voters," and "white working class voters."

What they are talking about are rednecks. But in their political correctness, media types cannot bring themselves to utter the word "redneck." So I'll say it for them: redneck-redneck-redneck-redneck.

[sheik yerbouty]

That one looks like one of the Village People..

[thulldud]

They hate it when working people peak for themselves.

Cause we might say "nucular"?

[bilhosty]

It was the same white working class (rednecks if you will) who moved west after the turn of the 19th century. They took 40 acres and cut down the trees and pulled the stumps. In their spare time they hunted game to feed their family and dug wells. How many of you have ever been out in the woods and seen and considered the enormity of this task? Then in winter they took the logs and hewed them and then constructed log cabins. The same “rednecks” learned to work with other in the community so people would help them when it came to birthing babies and helping out when somebody was ill. They had to pull their weight and that was it, or they would not be a part of the community. These tasks went on for years. To survive you had to be resourceful, reliable and have a will of iron. If you didn't you perished, or if you had the money you went back to Europe. This was an enormous job and an enormous undertaking. There was danger and people defended and fought for what little was theirs. The women worked right beside the men and raised families to boot.Their way was not one iota easier.

Well at about mid century they were established and the frontier was gone they had survived and ensured their survival. So they took the skills and attributes they gained from the frontier and put them to work at building a more prosperous country and a better life for themselves. And when the turn of the next century happened they had built the most prosperous country in the face of the world. They passed these habits and values to there children.

They were world changers. That little country that consisted of 13 colonies turned states along the Atlantic coast with little of anything past the Appalachians spread form sea to shining sea. It was a fantastic sucess. Most places in Europe in contrast looked pretty much the same way they did at the end and the beginning of the nineteenth century. We learned that if we don't like the way the world works, and if we are right. Then we go out and change it. And we have don it many times over and the rest of the world has always been better for it.

Those people (red necks if you will) passed these values onto their children and because of it American has always been successful. That is one reason why I would go for a person not so removed from he pioneers over Barrak Obama any day. Sarah Palins life experience on the near frontier of Alaska beats BO’s Harvard education any day.

[normy]

I do not know the number of Masters degrees held in the U.S. but the term "highly educated" can be used pretty loosely.

I do not have a degree from a University but I dropped out to start my own business on which I support a wife and 3 kids. My wife has a bachelors and most of my friends do too. Most never used their degree for their occupation they now have. I know some liberals who seem to have degrees in Sociology which I guess makes you incredibly intelligent.

[marsh2]

I liked the article. Of course, I am a descendant of a Scots-Irish great great grandmother. I found it rang true for my neck of the woods in far northern California. Freedom is a most important value to us here on the “frontier.”

The tern “redneck” came from the scarves worn by the coal miners in Appalachia trying to unionize against dengerous mining conditions. When it came down to a shooting standoff, they could tell their fellows from the red scarves or “red necks.”

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

It’s not only deeply offensive, it’s just wrong on facts. It’s like someone took a Jeff Foxworthy book and tried to extrapolate a worldview from it. In fact, I reckon that’s just what he did.

[chesley]

I looked and looked. Which one(s) of that list of traits represented the “worst” of American culture? they all looked pretty good to me, but maybe I’m mistaken.

[thulldud]

Well, that's certainly why I supported Bush, but I'm not sure it entirely accounts for the other 59,459,765.

I checked myself against his list, but I came up short:

• self-righteous (Gave up on that years ago.)
• gun-totin' (Own 'em, but don't have CCW. Yet.)
• military-lovin' (Oh, yeah! Although I couldn't join up.)
• sister-marryin' (Uh, no.)
• abortion-hatin' (Guilty as charged.)
• gay-loathin' (I'll give him this one, too.)
• foreigner-despisin' (Nope.)
• non-passport-ownin' (Nope again.)
• rednecks (Depends. Do you hafta know "both kinds" of music?)

So I scored about 30%. Play again?

[marron]

They hate it when working people peak for themselves.

One of these days I'll get that spelling thing down.

[Plutarch]

The author is essentially using, without attribution, the thesis of the very influential, must reading, article by Walter Russell Mead, The Jacksonian Tradition , which is further elaborated in the book, Special Providence

Mead, in turn, was indebted to the absolutely crucial book to understanding American political culture and history, David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed

.

[Travis McGee]

These liberal PC idjits are clueless. They seem to think we're bothered by being called rednecks. We're proud! We can fix our own cars, shoot our own food (or robbers) and on and on. They just don't "get" us at all!

[EyeGuy]

Don’t know if you saw this:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2078422/posts

[x]

Bageant isn't an Englishman. And he's not attacking the "rednecks." At least his article's not simply an attack. He finds a lot to admire in that culture.

Bageant is on the left, and calls himself a "leftneck," but he's cutting across the "culture war" -- not taking one side against the other.

I don't know what to make of his article. He wants "redneck" both to be a Southern or Appalachian Scots-Irish thing and to apply to the whole American working class. When you try to stretch words that far, maybe you need new ones.

[ZULU]

The author of this piece is an imbicle.

[jakerobins]

We had Bubba Clinton in the white house..LOL
Also an anecdote: I have heard that during the first inagural George Washington went to a two day BBQ!! (By the way cooking hot-dogs and burgers in the back yard isn’t “bbq’ueing” in the South!! LOL

[Ancesthntr]

While I live in Texas, I work indoors, so I can’t be a redneck.

Nonetheless, all I have to say to this ball-less Limey and people like him/her/it: phuhk y’all.

[Snickering Hound]

"What that Limey is doing to that steak just ain't right..."

[Eagle Eye]

Was written by a poser.

[hiredhand]

Ah yes...the BBC. :-) Having lived there for almost ALL of the 1990s I can state with surety that the vast majority of the British public don't know what a redneck is, nor is it possible to teach them. They can't get their minds around the philosophy.

The exception to this is villagers. They ARE rednecks, and therefore understand the concept very well. We lived in a village and got on with them quite well. :-)

[AUsome Joy]

I am a redneck down to the Ulster ancestors and loving fried pickles.

I find it offensive also. I think it is because we can laugh together and have fun at our own expense, but don’t want someone outside to make fun of us. We know just how much is really true and what isn’t. Jeff Foxworth is one of us.

As the author of this article writes:

“Self effacement, humility. We are usually the butt of our own jokes, in an effort not to appear aloof among one another.”