What is the matter with Texas?!!!!

[idiosyncratic]

Texas Billboards Feature Osama, Arafat

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - A Texas radio station has sparked some controversy by erecting not-so-flattering billboards featuring al Qaida head Osama bin Laden, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The signs say "Two down, one to go," an apparent reference to Arafat's death and Saddam's toppling by a U.S.-led invasion last year. There are also signs that have bin Laden alone that say "Some people want you dead." There are about 20 signs around the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

<snip>

One of the billboards was erected above the Texas Hereford Association's building. The manager of the cattle association, Jack Chastain, was not amused. "I'm a strong Republican and a strong Bush supporter," he said. "But I'd like to believe we're above that. I'd like to think we have more class. That looks to me like it's low-class."

Bason was unrepentant. "We knew some people would be offended by them. But they prefer to ignore the facts of the world we live in these days," he said.


SO . . . What is it? Is there something in the water down there? Tom Delay, * , and stuff like this . . .

[stopbush]

1. Gee, too bad they already spent the money. They could have shown the REAL

threats to America:

Barney, Twinky Winky ans Sponge Bob...

[annabanana]

2. Pretty funny, since B'*sh seems to want us to forget that Osama

is still out there....and probably living the life of Riley too!

[Ezlivin]

3. Dude, they MANUFACTURE the Kool-Aid down here

My wife saw one of the billboards on her commute to Dallas. WTF?

It's like a tsunami of Republican RWers is hitting this area.

They're going to build the Bush Presidential Library in Dallas. If it only contained the books he'd read, it could fit into a phone booth. If it only contained the books he understood, they'd just need one bookend.

[ashmanonar]

6. so what books,

cat in the hat, green eggs and ham?

[Ezlivin]

7. Readers' Digest Condensed Version of "Dick and Jane"

It has extra large pictures, too.

[ashmanonar]

8. LOL n/t

[noamnety]

4. "Some people want you dead."

Somebody needs to erect billboards right after those that say "Too bad you're hiding."

[Wright Patman]

5. Osama is on the BFEE payroll

Every action or inaction taken since 9-11 bolsters this "conspiracy thinking." Powell once slipped and told Congress about the contents of a bin Laden tape before its existence was even known. Powell then blurted out, "You'll hear it over al-Jazeera later on in the day."

Texans (and being one, I can say it) are like Southerners in general. They are very macho and militaristic, picking fights where none is necessary, etc. Southerners on steroids.

Also, they are very literal-minded. Subtlety and nuance go over their heads. Even ** has said, "I don't do nuance."

This is also why the belief that one must adhere to a literal word-for-word interpretation of the King James Version of the Bible or go to hell is so popular down here.

[pop goes the weasel]

9. not literal-minded

You are right about nuance and subtlety not working in this neck of the woods, but a big mistake is to think that means Texans (and red-staters in general) are literal-minded. They are metaphor-minded, and Texan speech is evidence of that. Any point you want to drive home, you drive it home with a metaphor. The New Testament parables are admired because that is how information is communicated among Texans. There are really not that even that many KJV literalists; most evangelical Christians are prepared to accept wide swaths of the entire Bible as metaphor. The problem is the tradition of letting the most narrow-minded, conservative, fearful and uneducated people set the social pace, so the literalist minority has a great deal more influence than its numbers suggest it should have.

This is really important to the successful communication of Democratic goals. The question that should be raised regarding the billboard is not "what's wrong with Texas?" but "what message is being communicated with that billboard?" I think Democrats have to respond with striking metaphors that emphasize the success of Democratic values. Nuance doesn't work on a billboard, and the red states have a billboard mind.

[idiosyncratic]

11. How can you live there?

When this happened in Texas, I really, really wondered about the depths of evil to which people could descend.


In doing a search for that story, I found this interesting article from the pre-election time in 2000.

Sister of Texas dragging death victim attacks Bush

Too bad her efforts couldn't have prevented his election in 2000 . . . :cry:



Edit to fix link

[OutsourceBush]

18. Osama is on the BFEE payroll

Of course he was, he is part of the Saudi 'Bin Laden family'. He does what his family (long time 'Bush family' business partners) and Bush tell him to do.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pop goes the weasel]

12. white trash and low-rent?

What do you have against poor people? And to think, some Democrats actually wonder why poor people don't believe the Democratic Party cares about them. Gee, I wonder why?

[Colorado Blue]

13. Poor folks...

I'm with you. It's OK to vent but bigotry is bigotry.

Besides, I'm poor:)

Poor doesn't necessarily mean bad, stupid or unaccomplished. In this society, plenty of Ph.D.'s go begging for work and forget about being an independent creative person or an intellectual.

The Democratic Party needs to get down with our roots as the party of the PEOPLE - increasing numbers of whom are flat broke.

Thanks!

[pop goes the weasel]

20. As a flat-broke Ph.D.

I say, yeah, what you said!

[ruggerson]

14. What makes you think white trash

are necessarily poor? Bush is white trash to the hilt and he's got a lot of (ill gotten) jack in the bank.

White trash and low rent are states of mind. Not necessarily economic conditions.

[pop goes the weasel]

19. Bush is not white trash

White trash has a definite meaning, referring to white people of unknown family background or who violated the cultural norms of Southern society. Bush is obviously not part of that category.

And I for sure don't get the animosity toward "low rent." Low rent is a state of mind? Well, I suppose that a person could pay a high rent and still live as if they needed to pay a lower rent, because that's certainly true for most of the renters I know. Sorry we don't meet your class standards.

As a native Texan, I've been acutely aware of classism my entire life. It's a weapon wielded to keep people from being able to unite or effect real change. It's a way of telling people wearing second-hand clothes and living in substandard housing to shut up and go away. And I can't help but be shocked to see it on a progressive message board.

The way that Republicans successfully appeal to the lower economic and educational classes is not by highlighting their status as "trash" but instead the group identity as "folks"--regular, hard working people who have cultural traditions worth preserving. That "folk" identity can cut across racial, religious, educational and economic lines, and Democrats used to know that.

[Ernesto]

16. white trash, low rent?

I recently took a cruise out of Galveston. About 75% of the passengers were from the Texas middle class. My wife & I agreed that we had never seen so many well fed (FAT), naive people in our lives. On the whole, they were nice enough folks. Over meals, (where else?) some even revealed their personal pride over the thing in the white house. State pride is alive & very well in Texas. For the life of me, I just don't get it.... I saw plenty of poverty & slums and will never forget that scary looking smog that loomed over all the distant refineries.
Maybe there's cool aid in the water.
On edit, I'm from California (the state that had it's current joke govenor installed by texas repukes)

[Liberal In Texas]

15. Tell me where you're from, idiosyncratic, and I'll bet I can dig up...

some pretty bizarre stuff from wherever it is you live.

First of all, this story is OLD NEWS.

Second, Texas is a pretty goddamn big place, we have our share of crazies here just like the rest of the country.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating, this region bashing some DU'ers engage in is disgraceful.

[Paladin]

21. Nice Try, Lib.....

...but I'm afraid it's futile. Texas-trashing threads are part and parcel of the DU mix these days. Somehow it's OK for people who avoid stereotyping minorities, gays, etc. to blithely claim that the entire population of Texas---even you, me, and the hundreds of thousands of other Texans who voted Democratic this last time around---are a bunch of right-wing, gun-crazed, child-drowning, death penalty junkies.
I've complained about it before, and it hasn't made a fucking bit of difference. Keep the faith; the White House won't be occupied by a Texan forever, and then it'll be some other state's turn to be subjected to this kind of ugliness.

With You In Spirit, Near Houston

[OutsourceBush]

17. signs... bin Laden alone that say "Some people want you dead."

I think this is a pretty clear message.

they think Bin Laden is in Texas and they are letting him know they are onto him and they will turn Texas upside-down to find him.

[yella_dawg]

22. I'll tell you what's wrong with Texas.

In the late seventies, the economy collapsed in the northeast, and there was a massive influx of them Fuckin' Yankees into major Texas cities, hoping for jobs in or related to the oil boom that cranked up during and after the embargo.

Prior to that, Texas was a paradise populated only by the intelligent and enlightened. Our men were brave and strong, our women beautiful and good hearted. It was Utopia, and nothing but good met the eye from the Red River to the Rio Grande.

But since the assholes came south, it has become a desolation. The earth is blasted, the people stupid and evil, even the once blue skies are a burden to the soul. This is without a doubt the greatest disaster to ever strike a civilization.

Thanks for asking.

[Ernesto]

23. Were all the children "above average" as well? n/t

[yella_dawg]

24. Much, much above average,

Cherubim descended to earth.