Check out this epic photo of lake effect snow in MI!

A northerner's view of the south.

I am not one to start a thread on something there are many threads about.

There are many of these south-related right now and they get quite long and I don't get to spend much time on DU so I wanted to throw this out there: As a northerner from a kind of blue state I think I can actually relate to our southern friends who have to put up with all manner of teabilly nonsense where they live.

While Michigan (my state) goes blue for the WH and Senate it's blood red at all levels of state government and, of course, our Cong districts have been gerrymandered into all manner of contortions so our House delegation is by no means solid blue.

In my view we should all be as encouraging as possible to our southern friends & allies. It's hard enough to be somewhat alone in your views within your own community and can be discouraging. I live in a very red zone of this essentially purple state and it's frustrating as hell.

There are total teabilly assholes in every single state of our nation. Here in a pretty northern end of the mitten I see my share of confederate flags on pick-up trucks and elsewhere. I have been very deeply involved in politics and can tell you that no matter what, a Dem winning in this region is nearly impossible and virtually (so far) from state level on up.

Sure, maybe some regions of the country are unfortunate enough to have a larger percentage of the population that are members of Faux News nation and the like but the fact remains we all have them in our states.

Obviously the answer is not to stifle discussion but we are no better off if any mention of activity in the south spawns half a dozen OPs taking great offense at all the "bashing". Sadly this happens because, even if a south-related OP simply reports facts of some event we all know someone will chime in with some general statement about "the south". People who try hard to affect progressive change in that area can only feel discouraged and disregarded for their efforts at reading such things.

I think we should try to be less general in our choice of terms, that might help. Let's acknowledge the bullshit is from the RWNJs in this state or that.

Now that Michigan seems to have recently gone fascist we could easily be considered a red-state full of enough stupid people to elect the likes of Snyder to Gov and Bill Shuette to AG with GOP held House & Senate. Racism is rampant as is clearly seen in the plight of Detroit and other metro areas.

We need to be cognizant of those who fight the good fight as the under-dog in their communities when it comes to politics. It's damn hard to keep going much less keep others involved AND try to grow your membership in such territory and those who do so deserve much recognition and praise.

And on-going encouragement as well as any other help we can give them such as supporting some of their up-against-entrenched-Rethug state House race or whatever. Phone banking can be done from anywhere and making campaign donations is very simple to do in several forms.

We can create positive energy and end the divisiveness here and possibly start a progressive trend. I would love to see updates on progressive candidates in southern districts during the upcoming mid-terms. Hopefully they can draw some national attention and possible other benefits.

I hope we can start focusing more on our commonalities soon so that we can become successful at achieving our shared goals sooner.

Sorry for rambling...

Julie--who thinks unity is the only way we'll get anywhere

Perfect caption!

Love it!

How Obama can help local Dems get elected.

I'm not sure how many of you are active in your local Dem party but I wanted to share a thought with any of you who may be.

During Presidential elections the excitement is always highest. People want bumper stickers and lawn-signs (aka "SWAG) for the top of the ticket. Here in my home county we make sure we have plenty of that stuff on hand!

We just got 1500 Obama/Biden lawn-signs in. We are working with surrounding county parties and were ab le to buy enough to get them pretty inexpensively, around $3 each with shipping.

We will in turn request a suggested donation of $5 each from individuals (bumper stickers are around .75 and we ask for $2). Of course we can't actually *sell* anything and if someone chose to not donate we couldn't do much about it since we aren't a business and pay no sales tax.

Anyway, people happily donate once they learn we keep all the money local. Last time we did this we raised a lot of money, more than the local Rethugs and we're in a red zone.

We enable other county parties to raise money on the stuff by including them on the big purchase. We get the stuff out there which is good for Team Obama and we raise a lot of money ourselves that will help to carry us through the "off years" where there isn't much excitement or money going around.

That money will help us to support state and local candidates in may ways and this is desperately needed. One doesn't even have to be terribly supportive of the top of the ticket (though I doubt many of the "Dems" not at all fond of Obama will be involved locally but one never knows) for this to work. I did it in 04 when I was just sick about Kerry being our nominee--raised a boatload of cash for local Dems off that ticket though.

Frankly I like being able to help local candidates by promoting the top of the ticket. Considering how the top of the ticket always sucks up the most campaign cash that is needed in all races, it only seems fitting.

Just thought I'd share the notion, in case anyone out there might be able to make use of it.

Julie

PS We buy from Demstore.com~Check it out!

Never again.

And by "never" I mean "never, fucking ever".