posted on August 6, 2009 07:45:19 AM new
I heard this article this morning and it echoed things I have said years ago. I have felt most of the problems that we face in this country are caused by the beliefs of those in the South. Sometimes I think Lincoln was wrong trying to keep this country together.
WASHINGTON -- Southern writer Walker Percy liked to poke fun at Ohioans in his novels, just to even things out a bit.
"Usually Mississippians and Georgians are getting it from everybody, and Alabamians," he once explained to an interviewer. "So, what's wrong with making smart-aleck remarks about Ohio? Nobody puts Ohio down. Why shouldn't I put Ohio down?"
Percy, the genial genius, laughed at his own remark.
Now, apparently, it's the Buckeye State's turn to poke back. In a fusillade of pique, Ohio Sen. George Voinovich charged that Southerners are what's wrong with the Republican Party.
"We got too many Jim DeMints [South Carolina] and Tom Coburns [Oklahoma]," he told an interviewer with The Columbus Dispatch. "It's the Southerners. They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr.' People hear them and say, 'These people, they're Southerners. The party's being taken over by Southerners. What the hell they got to do with Ohio?"
Down South, people are trying to figure out what "errrr, errrrr" means. Jack Bass, author of eight books about social and political change in the South, speculated in an e-mail that Voinovich really meant grrrr, grrrrr, as in "growling canines whose bark scares more than do Obama's purrs, especially with the Dow at a nine-month high."
Whatever Voinovich's sound effects were intended to convey, his meaning was clear enough: Those ignorant, right-wing, Bible-thumping rednecks are ruining the party.
Alas, Voinovich was not entirely wrong. Not all Southern Republicans are wing nuts. Nor does the GOP have a monopoly on ignorance or racism. Nevertheless, it is true that the GOP is fast becoming regionalized below the Mason-Dixon, and becoming increasingly associated with some of the South's worst ideas.
It is not helpful (or surprising) that "birthers" -- conspiracy theorists who have convinced themselves that Barack Obama is not a native son -- have assumed kudzu qualities among Republicans in the South. In a poll commissioned by the liberal blog Daily Kos, participants were asked: "Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?"
Hefty majorities in the Northeast, Midwest and West believe Obama was born in the U.S. But in the land of cotton, only 47 percent believe Obama was born in America and 30 percent aren't sure. Southern Republicans, it seems, have seceded from sanity.
A telling anecdote recounted by Pat Buchanan to New Yorker writer George Packer last year captures the dark spirit that still hovers around the GOP. In 1966 Buchanan and Richard Nixon were at a hotel in Columbia, S.C., where Nixon worked a crowd into a frenzy: "Buchanan recalls that the room was full of sweat, cigar smoke and rage; the rhetoric, which was about patriotism and law and order, 'burned the paint off the walls.' As they left the hotel, Nixon said, 'This is the future of this party, right here in the South.' "
That same rage was on display again in the fall of 2008, but this time the frenzy was stimulated by a pretty gal with a mocking little wink. Sarah Palin may not have realized what she was doing, but Southerners weaned on Harper Lee heard the dog whistle.
The curious Republican campaign of 2008 may have galvanized a conservative Southern base -- including many who were mostly concerned with the direction Democrats would take the country -- but it also repelled others who simply bolted and ran the other way.
What the GOP is experiencing now, one hopes, are the death throes of that 50-year spell that Johnson foretold. But before the party of the Great Emancipator can rise again, Republicans will have to face their inner Voinovich and drive a stake through the heart of old Dixie.
Washington Post Writers Group Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist.
posted on August 6, 2009 10:49:00 AM new
The "problem" is usually defined by a narrow group of people after consulting the pc handbook. They then bewail how to "fix" the problem most people don't have.
Most people do not care what other people do as long as it does not affect them. The rest have a sense of entitlement and attempt to decide what is "good for all".
Case in point, the latest "what can we do about racism" nonsense stemming from the police investigation of a reported break in.
posted on August 6, 2009 03:23:34 PM new
Listen, I live in Ohio and I'll be the first to tell you how backward we are. NO to gambling (one remark was that gambling will cause people to abuse their children), NO to alternative medicine (people in Ohio can't make their own intelligent decisions regarding their healthcare), Medicaid spenddowns (requires people on SS to pay a set amount for their medical care before their Medicaid benefits kick in - usually far too much for them to afford). Ohio, a manufacturing state when there's no manufacturing to be had in this country anymore. I could go on, but won't. We're a sad bunch. Heck, look at the Indians. Even they can't get it right.
All the years of Republican rule has turned Ohio into a backward, lopsided state. The only place that makes any sense is up here in northern Ohio. I give up on southern Ohio. No offense to fellow boardies who live there, especially the democrat ones.
posted on August 7, 2009 08:26:46 AM new
Did you ever see those editorials where they talk about how certain groups blindly support political parties and people even though historically they have gained absolutely nothing by doing so?
Politicians are basically thieves to whom lying is a defacto state of being.
Whack pack members post how they heard the new Obama speech and welled up with tears. Give me a break, maybe they should marry his speechwriter. So we got what the balance sheet showed: an inexperienced politician who is a custodian to his party's resurgence at the trough. Even the dolt in the street has it figured out, endless printing of more money, TRILLIONS in debt, and a bunch of speeches or welfare for corrupt unions.
Let us know when Ohio gets "fixed". It will happen when companies feel an investment there will result in profits, NOT when they double the taxes of the 10 people who are working to fund free vet care for poor people's pets or whatever.
In NJ, we had Corzine buy the election with his own money and even with pouring money out to riff-raff to buy votes, and having the President campaign (several times!) for him, he's losing to a thief.
Democrats are paranoid about the mid term elections, so look for a massive binge as they prepare for the possibility of going down the chute.
posted on August 7, 2009 10:09:40 AM new
Democrats should be worried about the midterm election. Only the angry show up to vote at midterm.
Having said that, the number of Americans who call themselves Republicans is at an historic low, and those who call themselves Democrats is at an all time high.
As Republicans and their leaders continue to pander to their "base" they'll increasingly become a marginalized, cultlike party. I don't know if Lincoln should have let the whole south go, but I wish we could show those hypocrites in Texas the door every time they start their silly threats to seceed. Trouble is, then we'd have a huge wave of illegal Texicans sneaking across the Oklahoma border.
posted on August 10, 2009 12:10:36 PM new
Cheryl, it seems like the Republicans in Ohio like to use fear as the basis for all the laws. I can't believe that line about gambling will lead to people abusing their chidlren.
posted on August 11, 2009 09:18:30 AM new
Sure there are angry dems. I'm about to be one if the congress doesn't forget about bipartisanship and get the job done.
posted on August 11, 2009 10:21:30 AM new
Don't make me laugh. The WSJ has an article where Congress has decided they need a few new Gulfstreams @ 69 million each. The high suit leather interior models LIST for 46mil and in today's economy are going for a few million off. Corporate sell offs have used ones for 30+ million.
posted on August 11, 2009 01:40:05 PM new
Profe, I agree with you 100%. There needs to be some results within the next year. There has been talk about health care reform before and nothing ever got done. Meanwhile costs keep going up, coverage keeps going down and more people are going overseas to get procedures completed that are to cost prohibitive to get here in the US.
posted on August 29, 2009 10:06:07 AM new
Nancy Reagan said-DONT GET SICK!
Look into your medicine cabinet,do you really need all these prescription drug?
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There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on August 30, 2009 08:43:17 AM new
Marie Antoinette said "qu'ils mangent de la brioche" ( "Let them eat cake" )
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posted on August 31, 2009 06:03:41 AM new
Hwahwa wrote, "Nancy Reagan said-DONT GET SICK!" "Look into your medicine cabinet,do you really need all these prescription drug?"
Actually, Hwahwa, "Don't get sick! was George Bush's advice.
We should give Nancy Reagan credit for her support of stem cell research. She expressed her enthusiatic approval of Obama's removal of restrictions of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
