Do we "deserve" what we get in Alabama?

[trof]

This was my response to a post in LBN which basically said if you live in Alabama you deserve what you get politically.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=197089&mesg_id=197089

Believe it or not, there's more to life than politics. A lot more. There are many reasons why I moved back to Alabama 10 years ago, after over 20 years away.

A low cost of living is one. I have always wanted to live on a shoreline, and Alabama is one of the few places I could afford a home on the water. I think every morning that I get up and see the blue heron fishing in the needle grass, every time I see a family of bottlenose dolphins teaching their young to hunt mullet and shrimp in the shallows, every time I see an osprey pluck a redfish on the fly, every time I just look out my windows and see the bay, all this has added years to my life expectancy. It is a tonic.

The physical beauty of the state is breathtaking. Mountains, valleys, creeks, rivers, waterfalls, canyons, forests, caves, seashore, are all within a few minutes' or hours' drive.

I have close friends and family here. They are important to me and to my way of life. Hardly a day goes by that I don't spend a few enjoyable hours with one or more of them. We just like to gather and talk, and maybe have a drink, and tell stories, and cook, and eat, and "visit". It's a southern thang. You might say my social calendar is full. Life is good.

I'm retired and I've already lived most of my life. Now I enjoy giving back when I can. I'm on the library board and belong to the local watershed watch. I do chemical and biological testing in our bay twice a month. These things give me a lot of pleasure and satisfaction.

The political situation in Alabama is a small fly in the ointment. Yes I wish things were different. Could I affect the political bent of my state by moving to a place where people think more like I do? Of course not. Rather than leaving here and hunkering down with those who believe the way I do, I prefer to stay. Who knows, maybe I can change just a few minds by staying right where I am and talking to people and writing letters. As my great-aunt Lucia used to say "By the yard, it's hard. By the inch, it's a cinch."

Does the majority rule here? Or anywhere? Not by a long shot. Based on state turnout reports, about 20 to 25 per cent of the voters decide who gets elected. Now that's a number I can work with and try to change the way they think.

Do we "deserve" what we get? No, I don't think so. I'm not in league with the people who elect politicians here. Don't tell me I "deserve" it just because I live here. I'm doing my best to change it.

[Skittles]

1. how about me in Texas?

if I hear one more person say they want to send Bush "back to Texas", I will scream. Why punish ME? I've put up with that piece of shit a long longer than a lot of DUers. x(

[trof]

2. YEAH! SEND THAT SUCKER BACK TO CONNECTICUTT!!!

Right on!

[wryter2000]

3. No more

No more than I deserve to have Bush in charge of the country. Or than I deserve to have the Gropenator as my governor.

[CMT]

4. no you don't

but I do say this much your GOP governor was very specific about what would happen if his tax hike package didn't pass--a package that (believe it or not) was directed mostly at the wealthy--in a state where most people are not all that wealthy--compared to many other states. Yet overwhelmingly it was defeated and drastic cuts have occured. It isn't right and it isn't fair. It hurts the most vulnerable in our society, but the right wing won again.

[Walt Starr]

5. Until any state approaches 95% voter turnout, they all deserve

what they get.

The U.S. deserves the BFEE.

California deserves Ahnuld.

Alabama will deserve Moore if Alabama elects Moore.

[kstewart33]

6. I wish the best for Alabama, my home state

I stayed until I was 28 and then moved to Houston and finally came to Denver where I will stay. The state is beautiful and has some of the friendliest people you'll ever meet. But politically, it was so stifling, and the religious fundamentalism could be suffocating. I went back for the first time in many years, about 2 years ago, and I realized that I could never live there again. I felt I was a stranger visiting another planet.

Colorado is a Republican state. But Denver is a Democratic city, an oasis.

Stay on the beach, enjoy the views and your friends and family. But I doubt Alabama will ever change. Some places never do.

[uberotto]

7. But no one from Alabama...

really considers Mobile or the Mobile area to be a true part of Alabama. I know, I lived there (Huntsville) for the first 30 years of my life.

Mobile is a small slice of paradise that got sat on by a big ugly toad. They don't deserve their fate, but for the rest of the state...

[Military Brat]

8. Alabama is a mesmerizing state

When I left Tennessee, headed for the Northwest, I passed through Alabama and it was all I could do to keep traveling on. There's something about Alabama that pulls one in, despite all its trials and tribulations (which of course are everywhere in the good ol' U.S.A.)

Such a beautiful and majestic state, and, if you can ignore the racists (fewer of them now than back then) and if you can ignore the right wing Christians, you will discover that some of the finest people in the South are living right in Alabama.

Don't let 'em get you down, Trof. The other poster was correct, we all get what we deserve. But living in Alabama is its own reward.

[WilliamPitt]

9. You should look up my dad

www.aladems.org

[eileen_d]

10. Damn straight.

You said your piece very well. I remember posting something about Montana on DU and getting reactions like "Well, I guess all ten people who live there will be in trouble" - whatever. Regional superiority/inferiority arguments suck. Truthfully, I don't think most DUers are like that, but in our "big tent" you'll find a few of every kind I guess.

[Stuckinthebush]

11. Trof...

Look at my response from the same thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=197089&mesg_id=197625&page=

I think we agree.

-Stuck

[Heddi]

12. Of course not,

and that's why I get so incensed when I read posts that bash the south, and southerners in general, and basically say that if you live in the south, you deserve to be labeled a redneck racist punk, because HEY! We all know that EVERYONE from the south is a redneck racist punk :eyes:

I lived in South Carolina for 25 of my 27 years on this planet. I moved to the west coast because I just needed a change in my life, and feared if I didn't get out then, I never would.

The south has problems---but everyplace does. California has problems, Washington has problems, New York City has problems---but no one 'deserves' the problems of the state solely because they live there---ESPECIALLY if one is doing everything they can to CHANGE the state and the way things are done where you are (politically, intellectually, etc).

WHenever people bash the south (or anywhere for that matter), I wonder if they're bashing the same "south" that I lived in---with warm waters you could swim in from May through November, with beautiful rainstorms and thunder and lightning, flowers blooming and men who still tip their hats to you when you pass them by on the street.

Ladies who call everyone "honey" and "darling". Families that go to church together and would NEVER think of wearing ANYTHING but their Sunday's Best. Ladies wearing hats and gloves when outside, people who hold the door open for you, and say "thank you" and "you're welcome" whenever the words are called for.

Complete strangers who go out of their way to help you, and seem offended if you don't allow them to help. People who return lost items and don't accept a reward for their acts.

Beautiful marshes with that sweet-sour smell of low-tide and pluff mud. Fiddler crabs that wave to you as you pass them by. People who smile whenever you pass them and ask 'Catch Anything Yet' and they chuckle and say "no, we were saving them all for you"

Beautiful grand houses, large looming oak trees covered with a veil of grey Spanish Moss. Trees so big three people can't put their arms around them standing together. Trees with welcoming limbs hanging just low enough for a curious 4 year old to jump up and start climbing into the jungle of green.

Cobblestone streets that you don't mind driving over because you know that there will be a time not too long from now when progress will render these streets obsolete (even though they've served the area perfectly well for 300 years) and pave them with new and improved road technology.

Wonderful black women with shiny cheeks and bright white smiles sitting outside in straw hats, weaving seagrass baskets and trinkets in the way that their mother's mother's mother's mother's taught them how to.

Old folks who still talk in Gullah and Geechee and intermingle interestingly domesticated foreign words that roll off their tongues. As they tell stories of the SEa Hag and the Gray Man and tell you if your cat licks its tail it's going to rain hard, and if the leaves of a tree turn upwards it's going to rain harder.

That's the south I know and love.

And if living in the South means I deserve all that, brother, I'll take it any day of the week.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

13. I moved to north Alabama from Virginia in 1990, and...

...I wouldn't live anywhere else. I agree 100% with everything stated by trof.

Lest you think that I have a limited geographic view, please allow me to add that I have personally lived in Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Florida, and California. I have also visited and/or travelled through every state but Hawaii and Alaska. I have also had the opportunity to travel overseas, most notably Italy, France, Spain and the Majorcan islands in the Med.

I have the sense that the fellow who made the remark about Alabama deserving everything that we got probably has a rather one-dimensional/stereotypical view of Alabama. That poster probably sees a state filled with nothing but tobacco-spitting rednecks driving beat-up pick-ups with shotguns, fishing rods, white sheets and large wooden crosses piled in the bed with a small Confederate battle flag flying from the antenna. Nothing could be further from the truth for the vast majority of the state...but that poster would have to live here to understand that.

[JanMichael]

14. No. Just like all Americans don't *deserve* the chimp.

We just have to keep slugging away.