tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post2052239044913208275..comments2024-03-28T14:13:23.835-04:00Comments on By Neddie Jingo!: Unable to Deliver Under the CircumstancesNeddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17079885040758748553noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-30553890756826757872007-11-05T12:04:00.000-05:002007-11-05T12:04:00.000-05:00I've always thought that Appalachia was settled by...I've always thought that Appalachia was settled by people who were willing to live poor in exchange for being left alone, hence its continuing isolation in relatively close proximity to huge population centers on the East Coast. Its geography and attendant difficulty of making a living off the land both encouraged and enabled moonshining and its modern successors, pot farms and meth labs. <BR/><BR/>WRT race relations... well, it varies. You might want to look up information on the <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melungeon" REL="nofollow">Melungeons</A>, although I think that they were limited mostly to the Cumberland Gap area. It is interesting to note the similarities between the hillbilly stereotype and the minstrel shows--exploiting a group's music while portraying them as clowns.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-55179023586525937512007-11-03T12:19:00.000-04:002007-11-03T12:19:00.000-04:00I believe the other common term for redneck is Ugl...I believe the other common term for redneck is Ugly American. And you're right. Any who haven't learned the real history has bought the American exceptionalism sales pitch without recognizing the narrow collective from which any exceptional achievements have really sprung.<BR/><BR/>Check out the Frontier Nursing Service some time. It's founder thought highly of the nobility of the Scots Irish she served.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-2641952712409748832007-11-02T11:25:00.000-04:002007-11-02T11:25:00.000-04:00Or is it that "rednecks" like being rednecks becau...Or is it that "rednecks" like being rednecks because they think being looked down upon gives them power, and this makes them better than other rednecks who are ignorant that they are being laughed at and, therefore, miss the opportunity to act like idiots <I>on purpose</I>?<BR/><BR/>The irony is that his irony is tragic.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-72502517448823465262007-11-02T10:53:00.000-04:002007-11-02T10:53:00.000-04:00So let's see... According to Goad, "Rednecks" are ...So let's see... According to Goad, "Rednecks" are just like other rednecks in every way, except they don't like being thought of as rednecks. So, they choose to act like rednecks anyway because they think that helps their cause? And furthermore, they think this makes them worthy of respect over regular rednecks? Do "rednecks" vote republican too, but to spite the powerful?<BR/><BR/>I buy into the rednecks-as-victim/pawn idea, and I accept that a redneck can be a decent human being and a non-racist. But that Goad quote is pretty far out there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-16835276762675858602007-11-02T09:39:00.000-04:002007-11-02T09:39:00.000-04:00American history is so much uglier than anybody (e...American history is so much uglier than anybody (excepts the likes of Zinn) is willing to admit.<BR/><BR/>Neddie, I'm going to recommend another book, one I stumbled across at random in the remainder stacks at MIT, but which (despite the musical examples that I can't read) I found a quick yet informative read: Jon Finson's <A HREF="http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Music/PopularMusic/MusicTheatrePopularSongFilmMusic/?view=usa&ci=9780195113822" REL="nofollow">The Voices That Are Gone: Themes In 19th-Century American Popular Song</A>.<BR/><BR/>I'm not sure it's exactly on point but it helped me understand better certain themes in American music. He covers courtship, death and mourning, technology (a great section on bicycle songs), minstrelsy, Indians, and the formation of the idea of America as a melting pot ("Out of Many, One? Western European Ethnicity").<BR/><BR/>Been following your thought process so far with much interest, and look forward to reading the book.Kevin WOlfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03092445616252796353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-58503741540062144442007-11-01T23:48:00.000-04:002007-11-01T23:48:00.000-04:00Anonymous: But before you think I'm taking you to ...Anonymous: <BR/><BR/>But before you think I'm taking you to task for automatically assuming all rednecks are racists and vice versa, let me lay this passage from Jim Goad on you. Goad's distinguishing among the common terms used to denigrate him:<BR/><BR/>"A redneck, as I define it, is someone both conscious of and comfortable with his designated state of cultural jerk. While hillbillies and white trash may act like idiots because they can't help it, a redneck does it to spite you. A redneck is someone who knows you hate him and rubs that fact in your face. A hillbilly doesn't know he's a clown, and he's happy; a redneck knows he's a villain, and he likes it. In the same way that stubborn mules are often able to make their owners look like asses, the redneck has the troublesome capacity to make ironic sport of the greater public's repulsion/fascination with him."Neddiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17079885040758748553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-20944107392745633312007-11-01T23:27:00.000-04:002007-11-01T23:27:00.000-04:00I don't believe they had any say in the Jacksonian...<I>I don't believe they had any say in the Jacksonian persecution of Indians; what kind of power did they have? </I><BR/><BR/>I say this in full cognizance of <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_rebellion" REL="nofollow">Bacon's Rebellion.</A> The Jacksonian thing happened a full 150 years later.Neddiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17079885040758748553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-38766803442105775432007-11-01T23:24:00.000-04:002007-11-01T23:24:00.000-04:00Anonymous:Rednecks are not monolithically Scots-Ir...Anonymous:<BR/><BR/>Rednecks are not monolithically Scots-Irish; nor do I believe that my neighbors are racists.It wasn't poor white rednecks who controlled the slave trade; it was wealthy planters. When the indentured-service system became economically unprofitable, and the slave population became self-sustaining through reproduction, the poor whites were sent packing off to Appalachia to become a buffer between the Indians and the plantation operators.<BR/><BR/>I don't believe they had any say in the Jacksonian persecution of Indians; what kind of power did they have? They were sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and (later) coal miners and Detroit auto workers. Who listens to them?<BR/><BR/>This displaced boy of Minnesota Presbyterian and Methodist stock has heard far worse racism coming from New Yorkers and Bostonians than from his redneck neighbors, here at the edges of Appalachia. <BR/><BR/>I don't pretend to know the answers to all these questions, of course; if I had some cogent things to say, you'd hear them. But I do think that we ignore class struggle at our peril. These people have been <I>fucked</I> since feudal days, and they continue to be fucked today. And I also have a very strong suspicion that the "racist" label is imposed from without, by people who need to feel superior.<BR/><BR/>Look: Could they possibly have made "The Beverly Hillbillies" about <I>any other ethnic group?</I>Neddiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17079885040758748553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-78900670463018879812007-11-01T18:18:00.000-04:002007-11-01T18:18:00.000-04:00"...is not a good recipe....""...is <B>not</B> a good recipe...."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-53932732233269024362007-11-01T18:17:00.000-04:002007-11-01T18:17:00.000-04:00Duh."British"-->"English" above.And speaking gener...Duh.<BR/>"British"-->"English" above.<BR/><BR/>And speaking generally and over-broadly. Some people react to hardship by becoming saintly; still, I have yet to be convinced that mistreatment is on average a good recipe for mistreaters.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-52131490527835812702007-11-01T15:23:00.000-04:002007-11-01T15:23:00.000-04:00Am I completely off-base in thinking that the Scot...Am I completely off-base in thinking that the Scotch-Irish experience---massacred out of Scotland, left to marinate in a sea of angry Irish people (justifiably angry, but it should have been saved for the British rather than their co-victims), _then_ sold to America---has a lot to do with the Jacksonian attitude toward the Indians and the redneck attitude toward blacks?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-6052633235514115732007-11-01T10:21:00.000-04:002007-11-01T10:21:00.000-04:00I'm never complaining about the Staten Island Ferr...I'm never complaining about the Staten Island Ferry again.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12306491903311869968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-32356742079933968932007-11-01T03:21:00.000-04:002007-11-01T03:21:00.000-04:00You might want Kevin Phillips's "The Cousins' Wars...You might want Kevin Phillips's "The Cousins' Wars," too. He studied the English Civil War, the American Revolutions and the American Civil War and concluded "a single crucible out of which a dominant Anglo-America emerged. In each of these "cousins' wars," maintains Phillips, the catalytic groups were similar: Puritans from Eastern England (East Anglia) in the 1640s; their Yankee descendants in New England in 1775 and 1860."Linkmeisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00576347754628145004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-64725270292879741412007-10-31T15:10:00.000-04:002007-10-31T15:10:00.000-04:00NeddieGotta read "Albion's Seed - Four English Fol...Neddie<BR/><BR/>Gotta read "Albion's Seed - Four English Folkways in America" by David Hackett Fischer. More about the Scots Irish (protorednecks)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-55220755967318083842007-10-31T10:34:00.000-04:002007-10-31T10:34:00.000-04:00Wonder what our elitist-who-talks-like-a-redneck p...Wonder what our elitist-who-talks-like-a-redneck preznit would think about how we used to buy and sell desperate people who couldn't pay their own way...<BR/><BR/>"The more ownership there is in America, the more vitality there is in America, and the more people have a vital stake in the future of this country." -W<BR/><BR/>I'm regretting my student loans more than ever.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-33219541728895802352007-10-30T23:21:00.000-04:002007-10-30T23:21:00.000-04:00BSUWG: Here's Jim Goad, quoting Richard Hofstadter...BSUWG: Here's Jim Goad, quoting Richard Hofstadter: "Water was so scare on the Justitia's 1743 London-to-Maryland jaunt that transported felons resorted to drinking their own urine. Almost a third of the ship's human cargo died at sea. The vessel's commander, like most provisions-embezzling ship captains caught up in the trade, picked the dead convicts clean of their belongings. He claimed that he was "Heir of all the Felons that should happen to dye under his care." "Nice guy," editorializes Goad.Neddiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17079885040758748553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-26531204243813717452007-10-30T22:47:00.000-04:002007-10-30T22:47:00.000-04:00Christ, did you read the part in that redemptioner...Christ, did you read the part in that redemptioner article about what happened if you died en route? Seems if you had any family, <I>they</I> had to work off your debt!Boldly Serving Up Wheat Grasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17804188398018016592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-14814605845660188602007-10-30T22:18:00.000-04:002007-10-30T22:18:00.000-04:00Holy bejeezus, I understand my entire life now!Holy bejeezus, I understand my entire life now!Michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16152219034171337111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-16007251030881696472007-10-30T21:55:00.000-04:002007-10-30T21:55:00.000-04:00Will:I'm finding a lot of cross-pollination betwee...Will:<BR/><BR/>I'm finding a lot of cross-pollination between (particularly) Zinn's <I>People's History</I> and the project you were telling me about this summer at Kenyon. You might want to check it out.Neddiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17079885040758748553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10261187.post-75662309559011060202007-10-30T21:33:00.000-04:002007-10-30T21:33:00.000-04:00Ugh.Regarding the post previous, you might also fi...Ugh.<BR/><BR/>Regarding the post previous, you might also find Nick Tosches' <I>Country</I> and <I>Where Dead Voices Gather</I> useful, two fine, and very quirky, studies of the early underside of pop music. His bio of Dean Martin is also pretty damn great.Will Dividehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17877416158115540051noreply@blogger.com