The south has awlays been almost a closed society since it's antebellum days. MY family is from there, and I grew up on the west coast, so I've seen the culture clash and have a very great understanding of really how good these poeple are are as long as you know where they're coming from. It's really not a poitical struggle for them at all. It's really more akin to the plight of urban poverty as well. Why can't we do anything about that? Politically however, the south gets more federal funding than any other states and their general assistance rates are also higher than any other states: if the southern republicans really had the answers . . . .
Southerners are very proud people with very strong constitutions and they don't like to aire their drama as a rule. They have always been very very clannish and it is my view that reeadcial reconstruction is what brought us the horrible racism that still exists there. There are plenty of blacks on general assitance in the south as well, so don;t get me worng. But
the south is home to these people and always has been: that's a buig part of their culture. They are a very large family and outsiders; unions for instance, are seen primarily as interlopers brought on by
the big hand. That goes directly back to the culture of northern Ireland and Scotland where extermnination was used against them and they had to fight for their religion, so they're not about to give that up either: they act like people who have had their food taken away from them and for good reason as history will show.
There is a lot of rual area out there and like every place else; no jobs. There are more whites on welfare than blacks in this country and West Virginia has some of the most isolated and worst poverty stricken areas in the country, but
those people don't want to talk about it . . . Most in the rual areas would have been farmers, but they've all been plowed under by the corporate as well. They are
bootstrap kind of people. I just wish they'd fight a bit harder.
