No Southerners in Obama's Cabinet

[angus]

He's 15 picks into his Cabinet and not a single one is Southern

Well, the president-elect was born at 21 degrees north latitude, and will therefore be the southernest president we have ever had.  Given that credential, he may not need to find southerners to fill his cabinet.

McCain would have had him beat though.  Probably he picked Palin specifically for the balance. 

[angus]

Maryland is not really part of the south.

That's not accurate.  In school they taught us that Mason and Dixon's line defined the northern border of The South. 

And frankly, the most hostile, bigoted post in this thread was aimed specifically at "everything south of the Mason-Dixon line" which would mean screw Maryland.  True, I have seen more CSA battle flags in Pennsylvania than in Maryland, but that's really besides the point.  Such bigotry needn't be informed, and anyway, it'd be less effective if it said, "Screw everyone in the South except Maryland, Washington DC, northern Virginia, and a few counties in the southern extremity of Florida (well, nevermind, screw them too since they won't learn English), and also screw the part of the Southwest that includes Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, the flat part of Colorado, and the inland empire of California, and screw Southern Illinois, all of Indiana except suburban Chicago, Southern Ohio, western New York State, most of Missouri, and Central Pennsylvania."   See what I mean?

Anyway, it's a silly thing to bitch about.  I don't hear Iowa people bitch about there not being an Iowan in the cabinet.  And we even gave him the opportunity, you'll remember.  Sometimes there's nobody from your town (or your state or your region) in the executive branch of the government.  Hell, if you're from Hawaii or Alaska, there's probably almost never anyone from a five hundred mile radius of your home in the cabinet.  So let them get over it. 

That's not really point, though, is it?  I take the broader point, which is less about Obama not appointing traditionalists and more about society having to change its guard.  Or maybe it is about Obama not appointing traditionalists.  After all, it is kinda weird, isn't it, to have a Democrat president who doesn't have the Southern Drawl.  In our popular culture, it's sort of like you can't think of Democrat Presidents without thinking of it.  I remember a Barney Miller episode from when I was really young where this federal agent investigating a case walked in to the 12th precinct house and talked to the cops and Captain Miller commented on his "accent."  And he simply replied, "I'm with the new administration.  The Democrats are back, son."  We all understood the joke.  Same thing happened with a host of TV shows in 1992.   So I take the point.  Having a newly-elected Democrat president makes you expect a rash of Southerners making the rounds on talk shows and such.  But this year it's different.  Obama is from a place even further south than the south.  And he has that characteristic so often associated with the South but so often underrepresented in authority circles:  lots of melanin.  We're in for a new round of stereotypes, maybe.  Or, better yet, maybe we can just get past all the stereotyping.  The Audacity of Hope may reign supreme.  (And by Hope, I don't mean a small town in the hills of Western Arkansas.)

[angus]

Yes, I suppose so, you're commenting on how futile it is to try and define region by culture. Point taken. Still, if Maryland is south, and Miami is south, and Southern Illinois is south, then the term 'south' has lost its meaning. It means nothing. It is just a geographic entity. No distinctive accent, heritage, or political uniformity holds it together anymore. And what kind of south is that? We need someplace to stereotype and feel superior to...

Not exactly.  Miami and Maryland are in the South.  By definition.  Southern Illinois and York, Pennsylvania are not.  True, Cairo (pronounced Kay Row locally in that part of Illinois, as I was told there a few years ago) is a lot more like Kentucky than it is like Chicago, at least demographically, and the Cairo locals may well cling to Guns and Religion more than the Bethesda crowd, but there is a South, defined by Mason and Dixon's Line.  And it doesn't include Southern Illinois technically, but it does include all of Maryland, technically.  (And you're also wrong about Statesrights.  He laments the fact that maryland doesn't seem as southern as it used to.  So he's on the same frequency as you are, I think.)  As for your comments about Baptists, that's called the Bible Belt.  Not the South.  Not that the two are orthogonal, in fact they have a great deal of overlap, but they're simply different by definition.  If the thread had said, "No Bible Belters have been appointed" then we could have that argument, but the thread didn't say that, did it?

But the broader point about Democrat administrations no longer being automatically associated with southern accents the way the used to be--Just try to remember 1977, or, if you're not old enough, 1993, or, if you're still not old enough, just use your imagination.  Or YouTube, which is what has apparently supplanted imagination and original thought for Generation Wired--is probably the bigger issue here.

As for folks bitching about having no one from their state in the white house, I have no sympathy for them.  Democrats in this state set Obama up like a king.  You remember the coverage "Lily-white Iowa gives O-man his first primary win!  Could we actually elect a black president?  Will New Hampshire rednecks follow suit?  Or are they just English enough to balk at the idea of a Barack Obama presidency?  And anyway, Hillary Clinton is a very English-sounding name and has been canvassing New England since 2006.  But for now, I'm Chris Matthews, here at the UNIdome in Cedar Falls."  (Yes, he did two shows within a mile from my house in the weeks leading up to last winter's primaries.)  But the Democrats of this state gave him his soapbox and he didn't even give them a hand job.  Ah, at least he paid his bills, which is more than I can say for Senator Clinton, whose campaign still owes merchants statewide about a hundred thousand dollars, mostly for catering.  Anyway, you don't hear Iowans bitching about that.  Seriously, it just never comes up.  The Democrats of Iowa voted for the man they thought best for the job, with no expectations of an appointment.  (This isn't Illinois, after all. 

Um, what was my point?  Oh, yeah, that focusing on the fact that Obama didn't name any southerners to his cabinet is missing the bigger picture.  He's about change, isn't he?  Change was the mantra.  And if he'd gone with Clintonistas and Ex-carter people, all he'd have is southerners, and a few raging bulldykes like Janet Reno.  The fact that we'll actually have a Democrat in the White House, and no southern accent in earshot is about as serious a bit of evidence for change as I can imagine.  Moreover, he hasn't bashed Republicans since he was elected, which is more evidence for the change on which he campaigned.  Granted, I wasn't part of that cadre of Iowa voters that handed him a primary victory, mostly because I was at the GOP primary on January 3rd supporting Ron Paul, just like the rest of my fellow white supremacist Ron Paul supporters, but I don't regret voting for Obama in the general election.  His appointments haven't agreed with me totally, but they're largely centrist and not from the older Democrat school.  Sure, there are a few Bush legacies and Clinton legacies, but we're in two wars and a recession, so you can't expect him to change everyone.  But the changes he has suggested are refreshing, don't you think?

[angus]

That's all well-understood.  (As an aside, I remember when I was working in Amsterdam, I learned of de Bijbelbelt, which is a Flemish word having the same connotation as it does in English.  Interestingly, it refers to the southern portion of that country, and includes Limberg, of the smelly-cheese fame, because of the calvinist/protestant effects on local governments therein.  So if you're outside the US, make sure you understand which "bible belt" is antecedent.)

I also am aware of the fierce patrimony among the southerners.  You'll recall I lived in Columbus, Mississippi for three years after I moved from the San Francisco bay region and before I moved to northeastern Iowa.  I remember well how the locals would comment on how I "talk funny, like you ain't from 'round here" and such.  And so I dare say I am at least as well versed on the eccentricities and peculiarities of Southerners as you are, even though you, technically, live in the South and I do not, owing to the fact that I spent three years in what we could probably agree upon is in the Deep South.  I remember the cats.  Oh, the cats.  Here, in the midwest, dogs seem to be the favorite choice of the locals, but in Columbus it was the cats.  Oh, how I learned to hate cats when I lived in Columbus.  Since moving to the upper midwest, I have learned to hate dogs just as much.  But I digress.

The point of the thread may or may not be misplaced.  I won't comment on the misguidedness of the bigotry.  Especially from Democrats.  Whether directed toward Blacks, Jews, Catholics, Southerners, or whomever, they certainly haven't changed in that aspect of their party's character over the years.  And I don't necessarily feel compelled to point out how misguided the idea that a southerner can't be a good president or cabinet member.  After all, we have so many counterexamples.  Consider only the last two presidents.  One a Connecticut-born, Connecticut private schooled, Yale educated son of the son of a well-connected New England Senator from Connecticut.  The other a mountain man from Western Arkansas, town called Hope.  Redneck through and through.  Raised by a single mother and probably didn't know whom his father was.  But surely it's no secret that the Connecticut yankee just finishing office has dismal approval ratings not just at home but around the world as well, while the Arkansan with a fierce southern drawl is generally respected as a centrist at home and as a pragmatist around the world.  So surely the bigotry espoused by many (mostly Democrats, no surprise) against some is unjustified.  Just as all bigotry is unjustified.  Your need to feel "superior to" some shouldn't be lessened by the fact that you live, technically, in The South.  You are certainly allowed to feel superior to anyone.  Black, Jew, or Southerner who is more Southerner than you are. 

But my point that a Democrat has emerged--for the first time in my lifetime, and probably since before my lifetime began--with no southerner on his cabinet is interesting.  Not because you are now somehow no longer allowed to feel superior to some of his cabinet members, and not because some Southerners may have had their feelings hurt (and yes, some will.  As I said, I learned first hand how fiercely territorial they can be).  But precisely because it represents a break with the former political alliances and former status quo.  Sure, bigotries will still be there.  I would like to think we're past all that.  After all, we elected a negro didn't we?  But regional and religious bigotry still exists.  And in the past weeks we have seen evidence that so does ethnic and racial bigotry.  Although the latter is less harmful because in today's climate it goes punished by ostracism.  Wouldn't you agree?  But the regional and religious bigotries coming out in this thread are quite shocking.  Not existentially, but in the fact that we somehow accept them as proper manifestations of an enlightened society. 

So, Hope really is Audacious, isn't it?  But that's okay, I still hope.  (And yes, I have visited the hilltown in Western Arkansas by the same name.  It has a huge billboard with a 30-foot-diameter likeness of Clinton's face and a welcome to Hope, the "home of America's 39th President, Bill Clinton."  It's as tacky as a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn.  And just as kitschy as a pink flamingo on the lawn.  But it's as American as Apple Pie, Mom, Hot Dogs, and a twenty-billion dollar, government-secured loan to save Chevrolet.)

[angus]

In what world would Obama appoint a gun-totin, redneck, bible thumper to his Cabinet.

Does appointing the wife of one count? 

Okay, now I'm thinking we may all just be on the same frequency, but using radically different ideas and metaphors to make the point.  And maybe no one's understanding is flawed, after all.  Audaciously hopeful, I realize, but I know that sometimes it's okay to laugh at diseased, starving Ethiopian children with distended bellies and no formal education, and their interactions with overfed, overprotected, irreverent American children.  You just gotta make sure everyone understands when you're joking and when you're not, I suppose.  Maybe that's the essence communication nowadays.  Emoticons just seem so vulgar to me.  Maybe I'm old-fashioned that way.

[angus]

I was being facetious

Totally, dude.  I understood the sarcasm as well.  I really think we're on the same frequency.  Even about Andrew Jackson.  The comments were more for the benefit of the great unwashed masses than they were for you.  I still haven't forgotten that you were the first to question my allegiances five years ago when I first started posting here.  "I don't know, man, I don't know many anti-Iraq War, pro-marijuana legalization, anti-capital punishment, anti-school voucher, welfare-friendly Republicans.  Is it the gun thing?"   "Um, no, well, yeah I think folks ought to be able to own any gun they please any time they please, but it's mostly the narrow-mindedness of the Democrats that make me a Republican."

LOL.  Yeah, strange alliances we gringos have.  Seriously.  I'm watching Guyana specials on Discovery.  Guess it's like the 30th anniversary or something, because they seem to have some new Jim Jones show every night lately, and it seems so strange that all these San Francisco Socialists are all very deeply Christian, committed to the downtrodden, the poor, to egalitarianism, and to Jesus.  It must seem really weird to you, assuming you're not old enough to remember the whole thing.  Whatever.  I'm not much into the poor or into Jesus, but I know bigotry when I see it, and I see it just about every time I'm surrounded by registered Democrats.

That said, you'll notice I've shed the R-CA shield, and not just because I moved away from California long ago.  I'm officially a no-party man now.  I didn't like being naked at first, but it's quite liberating.  Here in Iowa we're actually a plurality.  Last time I checked, there were five hundred thousand registered Republicans, seven hundred thousand registered Democrats, and about a million registered unaffiliated voters in Iowa.  It's catching on.  You should try it out.  Lose that ugly green shield.  (I also never much cared for the way forum folks call them avatars.  I think Al started that.)  Nekkid is better than green.  Come streak with me, buddy.  Feel the wind. 

[angus]

We need to send in the US Army to rape and pillage the South again and colonize it with Northerners. The South's peculiar and odd cultural traditions will no longer be forced upon the the true American Yankees.

Go the fuck away, troll.

You really have no grounds to say this.

Actually, you're sort of right, but he was just responding to bigotry with vehemence. 

Most of us aren't of yankee stock.  My European white-trash ancestors, all of whom were catholic and jews, and none of whom were protestant or english, and who migrated to this great country in the early 20th century were treated like dogs.  I recognize that in most of the world "yankee" means any white person from the U.S., but here it means yankee.  And, if that wasn't clear, the poster made sure to say "true yankee."  I.e., the George Bushes of the world.  Connecticut-born, Connecticut-bred, descendents of Puritan congregationalists and moralists who gave you Prohibition of alcohol and the Salem Witch Trials.  No thank you. 

The statement was bigoted.  It was bigoted against southerners, in particular, but such a bigoted statement has been made against many an ethnic minority.  And frankly, I see the bigotry, as evidenced in this thread, against southerners and their culture, as no better and no worse than the bigotry against Sicilians, against Irish, against Eastern European Jews, and against every other group that has had to prove itself.  Sure, I recognize that it's just a fringe.  Al rightfully pointed out that it's the very young (and therefore unwise and not very authoritative) and the active (and therefore probably not very committed) who harbor such resentment and hold such deep hatred in their hearts.  But the young will someday become old, and the active, although not committed enough to be patient, are loud of mouth and have the ability to influence others, and therefore it's time to call them out.

Sure, Benconstine was a bit rash, and the label "troll" was misplaced, but his vehemence was understandable.  And what's amazing is that even with the election of a black guy with a first name (barack) that means "blessed" in Arabic--let's appreciate that:  a black man with an arabic name.  True, only in America.  At least this isn't France or Germany.  I get that.  I'm down with the free speech and all that.  But even here it's amazing--you'd think we could breathe a bit.  Have all you white, anglo-saxon, protestants of English stock--and I know you're not one, but it's worth point out to the many who are--not finally gotten over your prejudices?  Is it only because Southerners (and Chinese) are the last groups that you're allowed to make fun of in public that you still make fun of them?  My guess is that it is.  If you could come out against blacks and Jews and Catholics you probably still would.  But times have changed.  And Southerners, East Asians, observant Christians, and Republicans are pretty much the only groups left to pick on.  It is simply a very hateful joke to talk about raping and pillaging.

That said, it's kinda funny.  Like I said, I can even laugh at starving ethopian children who get adopted by overfed, overprotected American families.  And, seriously, if you can laugh at that then you can pretty much laugh at anything.  And no one has ever accused me of being politically correct.  In fact, I despise political correctness, mostly for the reason you point out:  it's an anathema to free speech.  I'm just saying that there's a difference between a joke and a venting of deep-seated resentment.  And, as far as I can tell, many of the posts herein full of abject hatred.  Sore winners, too.  That's the really ing weird part.  Like I said, I can understand sore losers, but sore winners??!  That's gotta come from somewhere deep.   Somewhere unfulfilled.  Like, daddy beat me, mama didn't breastfeed me, and I'm 30 and still haven't been laid without paying for it.  That sort of thing.  It's the sort of hatred that almost makes you feel sorry for the bigot, know what I mean?  And Benconstine was just expressing that sympathy.  In his impetuous Southern Jewboy sort of way.  Sometimes it's okay to say Fuck You, and this was one of those times.  And if you don't think "rape and pillage" are fighting words, then you're deluded.

No poll necessary.  We're all different.  But you (and others) have to accept that.  Until we live in a society in which no one says it's okay to rape another's people or pillage another's lands, then we really haven't lived up to the noble promise that was Jamestowne's, some 401 years ago.

[angus]

We need to send in the US Army to rape and pillage the South again and colonize it with Northerners. The South's peculiar and odd cultural traditions will no longer be forced upon the the true American Yankees.

Go the fuck away, troll.

You really have no grounds to say this.


Most of us aren't of yankee stock.  My European white-trash ancestors, all of whom were catholic and jews, and none of whom were protestant or english, and who migrated to this great country in the early 20th century were treated like dogs.  I recognize that in most of the world "yankee" means any white person from the U.S., but here it means yankee.  And, if that wasn't clear, the poster made sure to say "true yankee."  I.e., the George Bushes of the world.  Connecticut-born, Connecticut-bred, descendents of Puritan congregationalists and moralists who gave you Prohibition of alcohol and the Salem Witch Trials.  No thank you. 

Please try to calm down friend, no pseudo intellectual psycho babble is needed here. By Yankee I meant all Northerners, not protestent English George Bush types. Please do not accuse me of racism, all the South is equally backward, regardless of race or creed.

I never called you or anyone else a racist.  It's an overused word, one that has lost all meaning, and one that I carefully avoid using.  But you have made incredibly bigoted statements, and if you're serious about them, then I respectfully label you a bigot.  I am not practicing psychology.  I simply stated that you (and others) are a very bitter man, and suggested that there's a reason for it.  I don't know what that reason is, but I have no doubt that your mocking hatred of others stems from a deprived sense of self.  This doesn't require a special training to recognize.  You have my sympathy, but getting sand kicked in your face doesn't excuse your general hatred of others, whether they be discriminated against by their region of birth or any other criterion.

On a more important note, today former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack was named today to be agriculture secretary.  So I guess my comment that there are no Iowans in the Obama administration is no longer valid.  Ironically, Vilsack was one of the few Iowans who didn't support Obama.  He initially ran for the Democrat nomination but dropped out of the race early because he had trouble raising money. He endorsed Clinton and campaigned for her.

[angus]

Worst...thread...ever.

And getting worse by the hour.

It's rapidly turning into a sort of Carnival of Trolls...

except that it's not.  trolling would be humorous, really.  what we're seeing here is genuine hatred.  bigotry based largely on one's birthright (in this case geographical).  it's quite frightening, whereas trolling--which is, as I understand it, irrelevant posting intended to disrupt--isn't quite so frightening.  wouldn't you agree that the opinions about the South (which are only tangentially related to the OP and therefore somewhat off-topic, I'd agree), were made less with disruptive intent and more with eruptive hatefulness.

Honestly, I'd expected this election to be more healing, but to see all this hate and bigotry come to the fore is as astonishing as it is disheartening.  as a foreigner, do you see us Americans as backward (in the true sense, as in regressive socially) as the anti-Southern comments would imply?  Or am I perhaps overreacting?  I really am very interested what you, a long-time outside observer of US culture, would have to say about this.

[angus]

That's always been the problem with the US.  I asked a former japanese girlfriend (back when she was not yet a former girlfriend) about Americans, and she was quite clear on this point:  "American" means white.  I have since asked other East Asians the same question and heard the same answer.  When they meet a person of Sub-Saharan African, East Asian, Hamito-semitic, or Native American (Amerindian, if you prefer) descent, they don't refer to them as "American," but as something else, where "something else" is "black" in the case of Sub-Saharan African, or "Asian" in the case of East Asian, or "Indian" in the case of South Asian, or whatever.  Even when these Americans have had ancestors in this country longer than I.  None of my ancestors came to the US before about 1910, and yet I am seen as a true American, whereas, say, an eight-generation Chinese-American will generally not be seen as an "American" by Asians.  So I submit that this problem to which you allude (the difficulty of ethnic assignment) isn't one borne by Southerners alone, but by all gringos, regardless of color.  (By that I mean it must be as frustrating to the non-European Americans to not be regarded by non-US people as True Americans as it is for non-Anglo Southerners not to be regarded as True Southerners, and equally as frustrating as it is for European-Americans who are generally sensitive to this phenomenon, etc.)

For the purpose of this thread, I'd assumed we meant birthright, but who knows.  I submit that the perception is one that all gringos, and not just Southerners, share.  It is a point of commonality, and a equally frustrating for all, Anglo or not, European or not, Southerner or not.  It's a matter of being from a country (or a region) where we're really not united by blood, common gods, or even common values.  China has ancient architecture, a population of which 98% are ethnically pure Han peoples, a common native language, and a common philosophical system.  What do we have?  An idea.  That's about it.

Inside in, if you will.

On a more important note, I don't think the boy's buying into the Santa Claus schtick.  The old lady took him out for a bit today, and I surreptitiously purchased and wrapped some presents and put them in our living room under the Christmas Tree.  (I've never done a Christmas Tree till this year, but my wife has been nagging me every year about it and I finally caved in.  I guess she sees it as part of her assimilation process.  Fair enough.  So we went out and got a Christmas tree a couple of weeks ago.  Strapped it with a nylon rope to the roof of my Mercedes-Benz and made the two-mile drive, very slowly, on ice- and snow-covered streets from the tree man's lot in front of K-mart to my house with the tree.  Man, Christmas trees are messy.  Just carrying it from the driveway to the front door made my hands sticky and got little green needles all over my sidewalk.  And today I went out and spent $523.87 on Christmas presents.  More than I've ever done before.  Not that I'm cheap, but I'm pretty cheap, and haven't made a big deal about Christmas shopping the past.  But I'm trying to get into the whole Holiday Spirit, and what with the boy old enough to appreciate the consumeristic aspect of the Worlds most commercial holiday, I figured it was about time.)  So I put the hastily-wrapped packages under the old Tannenbaum, and when they got back, he immediately noticed "the boxes."  Hey, Daddy, somebody came and left some boxes under the Christmas Tree.  I explained that they were "presents."  And then I quickly explained to him that Santa Claus had come to Cedar Falls, Iowa, and had left very specific instructions that they not be opened till Christmas.  He's not even four yet--his birthday is December 30--and he was quick to point out the Charlie Brown wrapping paper looked much like "our paper that we bought last week."  Of course I explained that Santa Claus asked me to help him and so I simply used the wrapping paper we already had.  He shot me a look of incredulity.  I must say I was astonished by the whole conversation.  We have never done Christmas Trees or Santa Claus or any of that till this year.  I'd assumed that he was old enough, finally, to do those things, and for the most part he isn't pawing and chewing at the ornaments, although we are getting a bit tired of vacuuming the carpet of tiny green needles daily.  Anyway, I had expected this ruse to be much easier.  I'd hoped to work it a bit:  maybe talk about how good boys get present and naughty boys get nothing.  Exploit that to my advantage.  A way to elicit peace and harmony at home.  Just put down some presents and say some fat, hairy, nearsighted white guy in a sleigh brought them in.  Now that I say it out loud, it does seem rather far-fetched, doesn't it?  I have to work on my poker face a little more.