Some good news from the south

[FreedomAngel82]

Hi all. I was listening to the news this morning (local) and I was hearing how in my Mom's hometown (Fayteville, TN) the high school there is allowing a same-sex prom. It will be held in Huntsville, Alabama (:shrug:) and they did have support from this. I, personally, was very surprised to hear this but it is good news. If you don't know about Fayteville they're a little small town (but not too small) here in the Bible belt. So there is hope after all here in the south. Small step but big deal. :bounce: So maybe if Mr. Dean spends more time in the south we could slowly start toward the journey of turning blue. :toast:

[caligirl]

1. Thats real surprising from a dry county, very bible belt.

[bamademo]

12. Excuse Me? Dry County

I live in Huntsville and I can assure you that Huntsville and Madison County is not dry. You can buy alcohol on Sunday.

We are some of the most highly educated populace in Alabama. Guess where the rockets were designed that took a man to the moon in 1969?
Huntsville.

[caligirl]

16. I attended a nurses retreat there in the mountains in the late 70's

and it was a dry county then. i lived in mobile at the time. No one wanted to do the retreat there because they said it was a dry county.
The retreat was near Huntsville at a Mountain retreat, no longer recall its name.
Perhaps since 1977 that is no longer the case. It was when i was there.

And by the way, I do know how highly educated the population is. For those who don't, I believe it was NASA who brought a good many scientists there. While in HS in the early 70's I attended a debate team event at a new school in Huntsville that was built for the scientists kids to attend,or at least that was what we were told. Not important now. Certainly everyone in the south I ever ran into seemed to also know about the scientific community NASA brought to Huntsville.

[bamademo]

17. That would be Lookout Mountain in Dekalb County...not Huntsville

Huntsville is in Madison County and it's been wet as far as I can remember. And there were plenty of great clubs in Huntsville in 1977
where my friends and I got snockered.

There are at least 5 colleges in Huntsville. We're not exactly "ig-nert" Southerners. Please don't start South Bashing again. Bud Cramer, our Congressman is a Democrat and he's from Huntsville.

On edit: http://www.huntsville.org/

[caligirl]

19. Hey hold on here , saying a county is dry and a part of the bible belt is

not a slam on a part of the country mygreat grand parents and grand parents were born and raised in on both sides, my parents were born and raised in on both sides, my aunts and uncles and cousins were born and raised in and still live in to this day, spread from Coffee County Alabama to to Orange County Florida. My family has lived in the south since at least 1800. Cotton farmers. Sylvester Georgia, Albany Georgia, Panama City Florida, and it goes on and on. I have a geneology book detailing just how southern my roots are.
I did not associate intelligence with southern dry counties- that was a remark you perceived yourself and wrote in your comments yourself. It was certainly not what I, a deeply southern rooted person meant, or implied. A comment about a community being dry and part of the bible belt is just that. Any thing more was a reflection of the one who took it the wrong way. Idid imply I was surprised at the decision to have a same sex prom in this region of the country, who largely supported Bush and his Anti Gay political propaganda as did many conservative areas including the valley and southern part of California. That is still not a comment that deserves the 'ignorant' comment you have percieved this as. The number of voters who went to the polls to vote for Bush because of his campaign as an antigay/ religous president is well known.



Perhaps seeing that I currently live in California, and knowing absolutely nothing else about me, combined with the topic led you to an incorrect judgement.

And by the way, thanks for the name of that mountain, we had a great time there.

[chicagojoe]

2. Dean MUST talk with Southerners.

I know that there are progressives, and progressive thought, in the South. This movement needs a voice, and it needs to be courageous in the face of Southern regressives.

[TomClash]

3. He's going to talk to them about economics

and we will start winning southern seats. This is Rove's biggest nightmare.

[FreedomAngel82]

5. I'm glad

And it was surprising. When I heard this I was really surprised they even considered such a thing here in the Bible Belt. Hurray! One small step. They were talking with a civil rights activist and he was saying how wrong it was that people had so much hatered in their hearts. I told my Mom it was in a way like with interacial dating and when that was a big deal. I'm glad Mr. Dean is coming down in this area to talk and I think if he talks about economics a lot it could help. I'm glad it's Rove's nightmare. He deserves it!

[TomClash]

10. Here's a flash from Brooklyn

People in red states are NOT stupid and Howard Dean knows that.

That's why he will make a very good DNC chair.

[scribble]

7. Our real problem in the South ...

Every region in the country has gone through a "progressive" political period -- except the South. This is the reason why Southerners are so hostile to Liberalism. Liberals are synonymous with Northerners and with Integrationists. They can not separate these ideas, and defend their ignorance because they think they are defending their own local culture, which they think was invaded and coerced by Northerners.

The rest of us in the Country have some personal or local background to draw upon. We vote in States, where laws were shaped at some time by Liberals. We remember a Liberal Senator or Governor or Mayor. We went to a State College with low tuition.

Not so in the South. They have never experienced a wave of progressive or New Deal reform, ever. This is the big hurdle that Dean and all the rest of us must clear, if we are to reclaim at least part of the South.

sc

[TomClash]

9. Hmm

The South had Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, Reuben Askew of Florida, Jimmy Carter of Georgia, and William Waller of Mississippi in the 70s. It also had one George Corley Wallace of Alabama who in 1982 won on a progressive populist platform with a coalition of blacks, working class whites and labor.

Perhaps you mean the South was not and is not socially and culturally liberal, which probably rings true.

Still, that's not why we lose there. We don't talk economics to working people anymore. Why should socially conservative, economicaly populist working people in Mississippi vote Dem when the Dems don't address their biggest concerns which are making ends meet, having a decent paying job, trade, better health care, bread and butter issues? The Dems prefer to talk about gay marriage and balanced budgets. If the Dems want to be a liberal upper middle class party, they won't win in the South - or most anywhere else.

[Spiffarino]

14. I don't think Dems "prefer" to talk about

...gay marriage and balanced budgets. I think we've let the other side set the conditions of debate.

You are absolutely correct about why Southerners don't vote Democratic much any more. We've given them no reason to because the party has for too long been cozying up to corporate interests. I hope that changes now that Dean is in charge of the DNC. We must relearn what it means to be the party of the people.

[newyawker99]

11. Hi scribble!!

Welcome t DU!! :toast:

[NoSheep]

18. Hello scribble...welcome to South bashing 101-good news this time.

[QC]

13. "They have never experienced a wave of progressive or New Deal reform..."

Oh please.

The South was the keystone of FDR's New Deal coalition, and the old people here still revere FDR and Truman. Talk to anyone of a certain age here and you'll find that they or their dad or grandad worked for the TVA or the CCC or one of the other "alphabet agencies." There are still quite a few people around who first got electricity because of the REA. Probably no part of the country benefited more, and more directly from the New Deal.

The other poster who responded to you is right. This part of the country is socially conservative, and when we as a party abandoned economics we virtually surrendered to the Republicans by allowing the game to be played on their field--"values."

If we want to get working-class voters back, we need to start talking about issues that affect them, just like any reasonably smart party would do with any other constituency.

[dolstein]

15. Sorry, but Rove won't lose any sleep -- values & security trumps economics

The Democrats have been trying to talk economics in the South for years. But what Karl Rove understands and most DU'ers apparently do not, is that cultural and security issues trump economics. If voters don't believe that a candidate shares their values and will keep them safe, they aren't even going to listen to the economic arguemnts, much less vote on that basis.

[TomClash]

20. No

We talk economics from Wall Street, not Main Street. We talk from a Goldman Sachs perspective - free trade at all costs, "retraining," balanced budgets, cheap labor, etc.

Homeland security is a joke. No one voted for Bush because of that -they voted for him because we're at war and we gave Southerners no reason to vote for us. We're not going to out-war and out-religion the Republicans - nor should we want to. But we have to give people in the south and midwest a reason to vote for us - and that reason is economics.

Here's what apparently most people don't understand - economics is values.

[CheshireCat]

23. This South Carolinian agrees

that the Democratic Party needs to spend more time in the south. They have a long way to go, but not as far as you would think.

Most of the people I know from places other than the progressive movement, say they held their noses and voted for Bush. They were afraid a Democrat would take their guns. These people are so uninformed that it is pathetic.

The South needs to hear what the Democratic Party stands for from the mouths of Democrats - not from Rush!

[tx_dem41]

4. Hopefully, the next step will be to not have a need for a separate...

prom.

[FreedomAngel82]

6. Yeah

I agree. Maybe next year. One step at a time though.

[johnnyrocket]

8. Doesn't even have to be a blue/red, north/south thing...

or even conservative/liberal....just PRO-people pro-common sense, pro-fairness. The dems just need to hammer home the GOP's enslavement by their corporate overseers...CORRUPT corporate overseers at THAT!

The PEOPLE need a voice, the overbearing powers in big media, and global-corporate powers need NO MORE HELP from the government. Things are totally out of whack against the common man.

[GOPBasher]

21. I'm pleasently surprised. :-) n/t

[lukasahero]

22. Pleased but

I attended the first high school in the country to draw national attention on this issue (Cumberland High, RI) in 1980. Read that one more time - 1 9 8 0 .

25 years later and we have finally taken another "small step"? I'm glad to see it happen but am frustrated that for the bulk of my life we have been fighting the same issues.