I was sent this today and thought I'd share it. It's behind a cut-tag for length and expletives. ;)
A Salty Liberal Shoots Back
from http://www.fuckthesouth.com/
Fuck the South. Fuck 'em. We should have let them go when they wanted to leave. But no, we had to kill half a million people so they'd stay part of our special Union. Fighting for the right to keep slaves - yeah, those are states we want to keep.
And now what do we get? We're the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?
Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshit about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the fucking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?
No, No. Get the fuck out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and fucking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those fucking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for fucking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their fucking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this shit, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately "Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years" dickheads. Fuck off.
Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being fucking arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the fucking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so fucking arrogant if I wasn't paying for your fucking bridges, bitch.
All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a fucking swamp. "Let the Spanish keep it, it’s a shithole," we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.
The next dickwad who says, "It’s your money, not the government's money" is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least... can you guess? Go on, guess. That’s right, motherfucker, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It’s too easy, asshole, they’re blue states. It’s not your money, assholes, it’s fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.
Let’s talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It’s fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marriage universe. Yes, that’s right, the state you love to tie around the neck of anyone to the left of Strom Thurmond has the lowest divorce rate in the fucking nation. Think that’s just some aberration? How about this: 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are fucking blue states, asshole, and most are in the Northeast, where our values suck so bad. And where are the highest divorce rates? Care to fucking guess? 10 of the top 10 are fucking red-ass we're-so-fucking-moral states. And while Nevada is the worst, the Bible Belt is doing its fucking part.
But two guys making out is going to fucking ruin marriage for you? Yeah? Seems like you're ruining it pretty well on your own, you little bastards. Oh, but that's ok because you go to church, right? I mean you do, right? Cause we fucking get to hear about it every goddamn year at election time. Yes, we're fascinated by how you get up every Sunday morning and sing, and then you're fucking towers of moral superiority. Yeah, that's a workable formula. Maybe us fucking Northerners don't talk about religion as much as you because we're not so busy sinning, hmmm? Ever think of that, you self-righteous assholes? No, you're too busy erecting giant stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in buildings paid for by the fucking Northeast Liberal Elite. And who has the highest murder rates in the nation? It ain't us up here in the North, assholes.
Well this gravy train is fucking over. Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bullshit and shove it up your ass.
And no, you can't have your fucking convention in New York next time. Fuck off.
18 comments:
Following the stream to its Source
http://www.fuckthesouth.com/
*huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuug*
Re: Following the stream to its Source
Thank you! I added the link to the main text. :)
Yeah, 'cause that'll make all us liberal Southerners feel ever so much fucking better.
The South USED to be solidly Democrat. So much so a Republican didn't have a chance in hell of getting elected here. Part of the reason? Don't get me wrong, I think the Republicans are hypocritical bastards. But...they don't look down on Southerners for **being** Southerners.
Most of the "blue state" liberals I have encountered look down their noses at working-class rural people (that's what "redneck" MEANS, dumbass...someone who does manual labor outside and gets sunburned doing it) with contempt and class prejudice they don't even bother to conceal, and then wonder why those working-class rural people go elsewhere when election time comes around. Who are the hypocrites?
I'm mad about the election, but I have to say that that rant and the attitude underlying it is a typical example of exactly why Bush won.
I wrote in my journal recently about how alienated I feel, how me and all my funky-witchy-alternative friends, who are also bone-deep Southerners, have nowhere to go. The people around us have shifted in some kind of fucked-up Pod People scary way, and if we go elsewhere....well, I know what prejudice is. All I have to do to experience it is go elsewhere in the country and open my mouth and start talking. That's been true my whole life.
What the hell. There's no point in trying to explain. Just...fuck that shit.
Wow... I seem to have touched a nerve with you. (I'm not sure if you are ranting at me or the author of the piece in question, or both.) I realize that not all Southerners are ignorant "rednecks" (and yes, I knew what that meant, and FYI I don't appreciate being called a dumbass). I thought it was apparent by the ranting quality of the piece that it was obviously not meant to be a fair and balanced perspective... it's a rant. One perspective, albeit an over generalized one, but one that I thought offered some thought provoking ideas, which is why I posted it. I'm sorry that you were offended by it and that you feel alienated. But I'm not sorry for posting it. It's my journal, after all. If you don't like what you read here then feel free to unfriend me. I won't take it personally, even if it is personal. ;)
It's not "thought provoking". It's just nastiness, from someone who's mad about what happened but doesn't want to spend two seconds trying to figure out why. Southerners voted for Bush, pretty much, because he doesn't make them feel bad for having been born. Regional and class prejudice aren't any prettier than any other kind.
I volunteered for local Democrats; my Congressional district is one that **didn't** get taken by a Republican. But I'm overwhelmed. I spent the days after the election crying when I got up and crying when I went to bed. This....just made it all worse.
So, tell me this: I'm a Southerner. I **love** my home, warts and all. When you post something that says "fuck the South", exactly how do you expect me to take it?
Try imagining yourself in my shoes. If it helps, substitute any category of person you yourself belong to...
We all feel alienated, even us here in the Bay Area. My roomate is quick to point out that most of the country is actually purple.
The rural working class is obviously a sector of the population that needs to be reached by progressives since economic justice is so high on the priority list.
The Republican was hijacked by the religious right and what we liberals realize is that our issues, which are truly moral issues - poverty, hunger, peace, equal rights, health and education - are not being talked about as such, instead the conversations are increasingly adversarial.
Evangelical Christianity really believes in things like the End Times and the Anti-Christ and they see their use of the law and government as a way to safeguard themselves against oppression by Satan.
Satan is real to them and the fear of hell a real motivator. They might even see it as a sin to support one iota of a progressive agenda if it in any way interferes with their belief system about the cosmos. These are people that are taught to reject sex and the body and this world.
My roomate reminds me that people are simply in pain. There are hateful bigots and people who violently safeguard patriarchal, straight male privilege everywhere you go, even right here in our liberal bubble of the Bay Area. People do get killed in hate crimes here. Women and Children are harmed inside of marriages. Women and Children suffer sexual assault by straight men here. Other men are harmed by men.
I'm sure that there is a lot of work to do and that we need to support the healers and the change makers and the pagans and the progressives wherever we find them and to continue to reach out to people in pain and in fear.
Evangelical Christianity really believes in things like the End Times and the Anti-Christ and they see their use of the law and government as a way to safeguard themselves against oppression by Satan.
The sad thing is that Evangelical Christianity used to really believe that poverty needed to be eliminated. One of the untold stories in all of this is that Evangelical Christianity has migrated is power base precisely from its location in places like the rural south to a wealthier suburban class who has abandoned the prophetic social critique at its core. For Evangelical America, the war against Satan used to take place through institutions like the Salvation Army. Maybe someone needs to start pointing out to evangelicals that they have sold their souls to idol, that they have abandoned the very principles of Christian love that are at the heart of the mission.
I like the "fuck the south" bit because it echoes and responds to a bias against northern liberals that is pervasive and unquestioned in the media. Its offensive, but what it points out how offensive it is for the media to so easily characterize a "northern liberal agenda" without even reflecting on the deep historic bias within that notion.
Why exactly are you reading Storm's journal, and then bitching about what you read there? I would never go to someone's journal and reply harshly if I didn't like what they had said. Who the hell are you?
I'm wondering...
The person from the south that was talking about the prejudice she encounters when she moves north and opens her mouth thinks that sort of thing only happens one way?
As a northerner I can assure you that I run into the same kind of prejudice, in a different form. In exactly the form that the author of the article talked about. People seem to think that I'm automatically better than they are because my accent gives me away as being north of Maryland. By the way, we have rednecks in Maine, too. Narrow minded little people who have never left the state, hardly ever left their own town and never will. They have chips on their shoulders a mile high that rejects anything outside of their own town as putting on airs simply because they are affluent people that have chosen to expand their horizons. The people that say they don't need to go anywhere, or bitterly denounce outside foreign ideas because they never will experience these things. We have enough poor and working middle class being pushed out of their own state by southern (meaning anyone south of the Piscataqois Bridge into New Hampshire) vacationers.
What makes the most curious about all this, is where did these ideas spring up? Where did the southerners get the idea that we're all stuck up liberal type people, and that they're perceived as stupid? Where did Northerners get the idea that Southern people are slow and stupid? Is it possibly because of the way popular culture likes to treat them in movies, books, etc.? It's just a curiosity question, because except for the occasional hate crime of pushing a gay man off a bridge, not that much happens up here to make me aware of the prejudice. I have an Asian friend that tells me this city is extremely prejudiced, that she gets looks everywhere. It's sad, really...
As for the "Fuck the South"... except for the overuse of the word fuck, it does bring up issues worth thinking about. First and formost, as I said... why and where did all these stereotypes come from?
Well, I think it is more complex . . .
. . . when you make a public post, you have to expect that people may react. That is part of livejournal world. Like , I think this bit is both offensive and thought provoking. I saw it on another lj before he posted it, thought it was funny, felt somewhat guilty for thinking it was so funny, but also thought it had a lot of good facts within it that had me thinking.
I have actually been rather intrigued by this whole eruption on this journal, keep bouncing back to check up on the conversation. I like it. The debate is good, even if (and especially if) it is emotionally driven. One thing it makes me think is, why do we persist in these regional identities? What do they mean? What do they mean when most of us who are not "southerners" in this debate here are actually more identified with the West Coast then the North.
The fact is, the prejudice against southerners is pretty thick. I work at a mid-atlantic Ivy League University, and I can tell you that a Southern drawl can hurt your credibility quite a bit here. There is a lot of truth to what both southerners are saying. And while I think is right to stick to his guns that it is thought provoking, I think it is better to suggest that it is precisely because this is thought provoking and offensive that we might want read it. What hurts about the fuckthesouth piece is that it is true. It is true in how much it represents a deep regional division in our culture that persists, and really has no reason to. Right-wing Christianity is not a southern thing, its something that actually hits every state pretty hard. And we need to remember that it was Ohio, a state which has a strong Northern identity, that was the key state in this election.
What I have noticed, though, is that many people who identify as Southerners are more then happy to maintain a prejudice against the "Northerners" and that the classic stereotype of the North as elite and misguided was perpetuated by the media during this election, without even a bit of reflection from any side of the debate. While the stereotypes of southerners may also be out there, they are often questioned. But why doesn't anyone question the media when they use a regional prejudice in describing someone like Kerry as an "elite Northern liberal?"
So, I have to say I am happy to posted this, but precisely because it causes such a fruitful explosion of thought and emotion.
Re: Well, I think it is more complex . . .
I strongly disagree that just because someone does not lock the posts on his journal that he is asking for public criticism. This is not, as you put it, ‘part of LiveJournal world,’ it is simply rude. I read Storm's journal because I am intimate with him and have been welcomed to be part of his friends list. As for strangers who decide to read his posts, I think it rude for them to go off on him when they haven’t been invited to do so. I’ve come across certain person’s blogs only to discover that they were assholes, but unless they invited me to take part in it I simply leave. I certainly to do not flame on them, seeking to criticize their thoughts and opinions in front of their friends and loved ones.
Well I just LOVE the fact that the southerners who decided to get all snarky didnt bother to dispute any of the actual points of the article in question. Lets not bother to look at content, lets just get offended because we live in the states in question. Maybe a nerve got struck because well, the article had a point.
Very thoughtful comments to an interesting post.
I live in Texas, which for all practical purposes of this discussion might as well be the South and has the awful distinction of being home to the Shrub (yes, it'd be wonderful if we sent him back home, but UGH! - so many of us in the purple swaths and little blue islands don't want him either).
I thought that essay was hilarious. And true.
Except that it's not about the geographical South to me. It's about the attitude that's been described above: the narrow-minded people attitude. It's utterly defensive and primal and built on shadow.
I was going to name the shadow "fear of not having enough" - scarcity mentality. Then I extrapolated, starting from a belief that all that fancy or foreign trapping or information is frivolous.
When you strip it all down to the bare bones you get "what do I need to do to survive?" And if I'm going to survive, it's not enough to make sure I have what I need - better make sure I beat down the other guy.
This is only my own experience I'm speaking to, in carefully watched my parents' and my grandmother's process in voting for Bush.
Re: Well, I think it is more complex . . .
I like the party analogy and I agree with it. I have no problem with Elorie disagreeing with me and in fact I am glad that she posted her thoughts about it as it adds to the overall discussion and brings even more ideas to light. What I do not appreciate, however, is being called names. I think this is perhaps what Chas is talking about. Anyone who wants to disagree is fine, but just be polite about it. This is, after all, my space and people (especially those not on my friends list) are guests here and should act as such. It becomes quite a different scenario when the offended person at the cocktail party begins to call the host a dumbass for telling the offending joke.
"Sorry you're offended... there's the door. Have a good night" :)
I agree . . . .
. . . completely with you here.
Re: Well, I think it is more complex . . .
You nailed it, Storm. It's not that someone disagreed with you that was a problem for me, it was all about tone. It has been the case before that people have thought that because they participate in the same religious cult as you that it gives them some right to insert themselves, and their sometimes ugly opinions or occasionally strange needs, into your life, and into mine by extension since as your partner of twelve years I naturally have a reaction when people disrespect you, as was the case with Elorie's post. There was enough thoughtfulness in her post for you to have done right by allowing it to be posted in your journal, but when you pointed out how disrespectful it was she should have done nothing short of immediately appologizing.
Ok I have just a few comments to make, maybe not too many.
First of all, This is Storm's journal, which means he posts his opinion. If you don't like it, fine. You don't have to read it. He has the right to his opinions. Just as you have the right to yours. Post yours in your journal if you like, but it isn't generally ok to jump all over someone for having an opinion, even if you don't like it.
Second, So you feel pain at being looked down on for being southern. Lets see, the whole redneck thing isn't about manual labor, its much more about closed minded ignorance. My family is all from the south, and believe me, they are a rather closed minded lot. Refusing to even understand that there are other views besides what they and their pastor think. My personal experience is to give people a chance, but when they prove themselves to be part of such a stereotype, I let it be. Ok so they choose to be dumb. If you aren't one of them, don't stick up for them, you implicate yourself.
Next, you should understand that for the most part, most of the money that goes to fund the southern states is not made in the southern states. Its made in places like California, New York, and Washington State. I personally find it rather annoying that our school system is one of the worste in the country because there is no money for it, yet billions, made in California go to fund other states. Imagine if your state had to pull all its own weight? California is pretty much self sufficient, if we were to leave the country, all we wouldn't have is an army of our own. There is an amazing amount of anger here about the fact that the will of the south, is what is now in charge of spending all our money, and deciding policy for yet another four years. While I was born in Texas, I don't consider myself a Texan, nor a southerner. Mainly because I don't want that sort of association put on me. I would rather be known for the place that raised me, not the place that borned me.
As I tell others who read my journal, if you don't agree with me, fine, talk to me. But my journal isn't the place for your opinion. And Storm's journal is about Storm. Just as your journal is about whatever you want it to be about. Rant all you like on your own journal. If you don't like what the south has become, change it, failing that, the country is really big, go someplace that is more to your way of thinking.
I appologise to Storm for ranting at you in his journal, but I really didn't think it is your place to go off at him about his opinion in his own space. That he posted it publically, means he is open about his opinions. But it isn't fair game to shoot at him for having a differing opinion, and don't be so quick to assume something like this is about you in particular. I can never understand people who are so quick to take offence at everything. Sheeesh!
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