SWPL: Multiculturalism & selling out their countrymen

He says it in a snooty condescending manner which is perhaps as insulting to minorities, but I think I likely agree with Neather much more than I agree with what you seem to be saying.

I live in a town of 95% white working-class people. And I was glad to go to a college outside that where I could meet different kinds of people. I do think different cultures interacting can be a good and productive thing. I do not see any need, zero, to feel some kind of "white solidarity." My solidarity is ideally to people and to Christendom. If I ever start thinking in terms of not having enough solidarity to "white people" I will flee this town like the plague.

Now if bringing in migrants has actually worsened the life of white-working class I can see a problem, but I think what he means is many of these jobs were not ones white working-class people were going to do anyway. If Asians came into my town to start restaurants and the like I'd be neutral or happy. That might sound a bit SWPL, but I'm happy when new white people come in building a good restaurant too. I'm very much about preserving things, but not all change has to be bad or destructive. (And I'm skeptical Britain's economic problems are due to foreigners taking their jobs.)

I might be misunderstanding you though so apologies if so.

Well, the obvious answer to the problem of politicians who do not represent the interests of the white working poor is for the white working poor to get up and do the hard work of supporting candidates who really do fight for their interests and don't just give lip service during election years.

Sounds simple enough, so why isn't this happening?

I blame television.

No, hear me out - the old Union halls or political party clubs were, places where people of common political interests socialized. In any organization that has a secondary function of a social club - be it a Church, Union hall, political club, or what have you - there will be some fraction who are mostly there to be entertained and another fraction who are there to advance the putative purpose of the organization.

With the advent of television, those who mostly sought entertainment have an easier option - stay at home and watch TV. With fewer people showing up, these traditional places where white labor organized became less important to politicians because they did not deliver the votes they used to deliver.

Concurrent with this is a decision by the politicians and financial crowd to move manufacturing jobs overseas - thus breaking the power of Organized Labor.

I think the Tea Party and Glenn Beck crowds are signs of a return of political consciousness among the white working class. It seems to me that the current Republican and Democratic party faces cannot credibly direct that energy. Ron Paul has shown that he can direct a portion of that group. Pat Buchanan probably could if he were to give up the comparatively easier life of a political commentator for politics. But the problem with these two is that they are past their prime.

Sarah Palin seems to be the top name that appeals to this crowd, but quite frankly, I think this highlights just how mainstream politicians have ignored this group.

Regarding your characterization of white rural poor, you are right on target, but you seem to say all that like it is a bad thing. I'm coming on five years having moved from Houston to East Texas and these redneck folks are generally real easy to get along with. And there is a lot to be said for not worrying about your credit score - and there's some rulebreaking that doesn't hurt anyone much, like a few scattered personal use marijuana plants out in the acreage.

I'm not planning on going that far, but I will be planting some tobacco in the garden next year.

There's a distinction I should make, that is between the rural poor who own their land - or have family land - and the renters. Owning your own land - especially owning it outright, is a much more comfortable position to be in than renting. It isn't all that hard to buy an acre or two of land out in the sticks where you can put up an old trailer and say, "It ain't much, but it's mine!" I also see situations where renting was done in conjunction with working as the landlord's 'hired man'.

One common trap for the upwardly mobile rural poor is the urge to finance a more extravagant lifestyle on credit. One fellow I know was doing pretty well for himself - when I met him, he and his family was living in a trailer he owned on a lot across the street from me that he rented. He found about five acres of land a few miles away that he could afford to make payments on, but instead of taking his old trailer with him, he decided to move up to a new double-wide.

Now if he had taken his old trailer to the new property, he would have had an easily manageable land note of maybe three hundred dollars a month and he could have used his carpentry skills to build a home in stages, paying cash for materials. Instead, he was immediately saddled with house payments of around $800 a month, which along with the land note means he starts off each month having to come up with $1100. Furthermore, the utility expenses of the manufactured home are more than that of the small trailer.

If the economy hadn't gone South in a big way, he probably could have done okay, if a little tight. But with construction jobs becoming hard to find, he is in a pretty tough spot. On the other hand, since he is not one to agonize over his credit score, he doesn't get too worked up over telling the manufactured housing company that they are just going to have to wait on that house payment.

Hello Thomas,

"I live in a town of 95% white working-class people. And I was glad to go to a college outside that where I could meet different kinds of people. I do think different cultures interacting can be a good and productive thing."

Well, I happen to agree with you on this. And I did likewise. But you know what? That was our choice to make. No one imposed that on us. It's also our opinion. Not everyone may share it.

I do not think that every one who voted for the 1965 immigration reform bill, or its equivalent legislative acts in the UK, had as all this a conscious design or even awareness of what the possible results might be. I do not think all of its advocates were "cultural leftists." But as for those who were: I believe they had a responsibility to make their goals, and the likely consequences of their favored legislation, plain to the votaries. If you intend to radically remake a society's demographic and cultural makeup in a democracy, you owe that much to the voters.

But none of this was done.

In any case, I think Rod is making a larger point here, which I think is worth reflecting on.

It strikes me that this helps illustrate how both parties since the 1950's have presented themselves as the advocates for the working class, but have by design or happenstance pushed policies to damage its interests repeatedly. Republican insistence on unlimited free trade and growth has resulted in stagnating (or worsening) real incomes for the working class; and Democratic insistence on virtually unlimited immigration in the quest for greater cultural diversity has done what, well, Rod has noted above.

It would be bad enough with the hypocrisy. But with it...

I've traveled around the world. And NO PLACE is as confused about their identity as the English.

I don't know what it stems from. It probably comes down to the simple fact that the English opened their country up to an astonishingly diverse groups of people (more so than the USA). While that's admirable in many ways, it does lead to problems.

Further evidence for a third political party in the USA. The politically savvy on this site keep telling me it can't work. I'm ready. The conservative Christian is not going Republican again. The working class can be pulled from their labor union lock step Democratic voting. The southern majority that Republicans used from 1980 until 2006 is shaky. The Democrats pull off the young mainly because of no alternative(not that the young can be counted on to vote). I just doubt that a new party can be conservative or libertarian. It must stand for what's good about America. Diversity(melting pot with fair immigration), Caring for others(including less military overseas), Independence(energy policy nationally, cultural issues like abortion locally), Democracy(education and health care have to be for all, therefore some government), Financially stable(get over capitalism vs. socialism-we want as many as possible to have the means of production-federal government must balance the budget-if Clinton/Gingrich could do it anyone can). I think crunchy con is the wrong label, although it was useful for a time. And Rod will have to write a new book to rally support under a new label.

Traditionally, the North discriminates by class and the South by race (and gender, sexuality, etc.). You can have your focus on class, but first you have to get somehow manage the South. Absent that, you're not going to get the relevant focus on class, whatever your efforts. A lot of the people Bageant is talking about are in the South, and they mostly care more about race than class. Indeed, they're famously hostile to efforts, like union support, to address class. So pick.

Wow. There are a lot of things to unpack here about Britishness, political motivations, globalisation, racism - you name it. I'd like to collect my thoughts and put down a proper response later today. One thing's clear: Rod's weekend of British posts has got me writing.

For now though I'd just point out that the Neather piece seems very odd. The reason it pushes Rod's buttons (and mine as well) is because it is almost a parody of how the right thinks the cultural Left thinks. But I don't think this is how the cultural Left (or liberal elite, or however you want to put it) actually thinks.

It is as though a former Bush staffer said "I got the distinct impression in these meetings that the Iraq war was all about oil and the need to enrich Halliburton", or an Obama aide saying "I get the distinct impression we are trying to crush American concepts of liberty and create a socialist tyranny". It's almost a sort of wish fulfilment for the opposition: "Ah-ha! finally the mask has been ripped off!"

The Telegraph article which Rod describes as "a jaw-dropping revelation" appeared on Friday, but a google of "Andrew Neather" does not suggest a feverish weekend of analysis of this revelation in the British press, which has needed no encouragement to discuss immigration in the wake of the BNP's BBC appearance (well, Melanie Phillips picks it up, but that's what she does). I'm not criticising a Southern journalist in Dallas for bringing it to the attention of this posh Scot in London (ah, the web), because the issues the article raises really are important.

What has really happened to British immigration over the last decade, and what motivations there really were in government is interesting and complex. Rather like the reasons for the Iraq war, you can see whatever you want to see, but there are broad patterns. As I say, I'll try to write about it later today. But suffice it to say, I don't believe Blair really sat there musing: "gosh I like foreign food and nannies, and damn our core support". Rather more to do with globalisation, British history, cognitive dissonance and a healthy does of government incompetence I'd say.

Rod, if you want to understand why modern British elites are ideologically committed to the undermining of British identity - and they are - you could do a lot worse than read the books of Peter Hitchens, particularly "The Abolition of Britain" and "The Broken Compass" (they may have been published under a different title in the US but shouldn't be hard to find).

Concerning the EU, for example, I suspect that many of its supporters in Britain love the institution not for what it is – that is to say, a corrupt and bureaucratic, though relatively benign, tyranny – but for what it isn’t, viz. a nation state with a distinct culture, distinct national values, and idiosyncratic patriotic traditions.

This thread has all the ingredients for a new Agatha Christie Novel, "Death by Immigration".

In my parents' generation, even for the very poor there was strong social pressure to be polite and to emulate middle-class behavior and speech patterns

On the other hand, in your parents' parents generation, suffragettes took up prohibition of alcohol as a means of preventing women from getting pounded behind closed doors. Though maybe that was considered middle class behavior at the time.

You can not bring up immigration and multiculturalism without mentioning Robert Putnam's findings that increased diversity leads to decreased social capital. Putnam’s massive study concluded that greater diversity lead to less civic participation, less charity, less trust, less voting, less church attendance, less contribution to community projects. “In the presence of diversity, we hunker down”, he said. “We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us. When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust. “They don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions,” said Prof Putnam. “The only thing there’s more of is protest marches and TV watching.”(http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c4ac4a74-570f-11db-9110-0000779e2340.html)

These results have been echoed in other studies as well. For example, Dronkers finds that:

1) neighborhoods’ ethnic diversity reduces individual trust in neighborhoods; 2) those with neighbors of a different ethnicity have less trust in neighborhoods and neighbors 3) a substantial part of the effect of neighborhoods’ ethnic diversity on individual trust can be explained by the higher propensity of having neighbors of a different ethnicity. We conclude that ethnic diversity can have a negative effect on individual trust.

And Rodney Hero finds that “When we considered the interaction of diversity and social capital, a powerfule dampening effect of the former on the latter was shown”.

http://apoxonbothyourhouses.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-diversity-destroys-social-capital.html

Cultural conservative? I respectfully disagree, though I have found Peter Hitchens writing on other areas to be excellent.

To suggest that the British liberal elite (of which I am a dissenting member) wants to destroy Britain is the same line of thinking that suggests that Democrats really, deep down, "Hate America". Now it may be that Democratic policies are harmful to American interests (some are, some aren't) but that's not why they are in the Democratic party or support liberal causes.

I have, in my youth, been fairly supportive of both the EU and immigration, but it certainly never occurred to me to despise my country. I love every hill and pub. Now you may argue that it is possible, in a deluded sort of way, to feel like that, and yet be unconsciously "ideologically committed to the undermining of British identity" but I'm not sure that's how the liberal elite tick.

What was the British establishment thinking in recent years?

I think they allowed Poles and Latvians to come and work here because they wanted to show that free labour could flow across Europe without adverse consequences. The French and Germans were scared about actually walking the walk on EU enlargement, but Anglo-Saxons are usually only too happy to accept low-wage migrants for the reasons explored above. And in fact, I find it hard to believe that Eastern Europeans are so culturally different that they will reshape British culture - it's stronger than that.

I think they wanted the nurses and doctors of Africa and Pakistan to come here to boost the insufficient numbers in the Health Service (and they'd bring family too, of course, but we could absorb them, right?)

I think they literally don't know how to deport illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers, arriving in increasing numbers as international people trafficing becomes more sophisticated (that's the BIG story). Because no one knows how to do that without creating vast horrible camps and a nasty intrusive state. So they pretend there's not a problem, just like the Americans do. It's unfortunate for us that London is the most international city in the world, and that most migrants want to head for us rather than stopping in Athens or Milan. Most Somalis don't speak Greek or Italian though, but they do have contacts in Kentish Town. I think all this is much more important than any conspiracy theory about benefits; or a twisted establishment mindset bent on destroying Britain.

I think they thought they could do all this without damaging British culture. They didn't really think it through, and they certainly weren't listening to the white working class any more than the Democrats or Republicans do.

The problem is that to keep the Health service and farms and factories staffed (at low wages), and illegal immigrants out without creating great social tension, is hard. Particularly for Britain. So the reality behind the increased immigration of recent years is a good old-fashioned stubborn refusal to face facts, not a conspiracy.

Maybe I'm still deluded, but I don't really believe it's the end of Britain, even the parts of Britain I love, from London to the Lakes and Scotland. Yet.

Well, dear, if we have to open the floodgates of our country to immigrants who share nothing of British history or culture so we can have suitable au pairs and good ethnic restaurants, why not? Because the point of life is consumption, right? If open immigration hurts the working-class white British people in the "sticks," who gives a toss, they're just a bunch of fascists anyway.

Why do you feel a need to distort what the guy wrote? He didn't use the word "fascists" to mean British "people" in the sticks, he used it to refer to BNP voters in the sticks -- in other words, people who have taken a distinct step in a fascist direction. Unlike you and others who treat the poor, put-upon white working class as nothing but passive victims of forces they're powerless to affect, he's doing them the favor of treating them as citizens and voters, i.e. active agents who are capable of making decisions for themselves. Indeed he's calling for a more full-throated defense of immigration from the UK government, i.e. a better effort to inform and persuade voters of the benefits of making the UK more "multicultural."

And that's the second point you've distorted: Neather isn't saying the point of all this is "consumption," he's clearly saying that the UK is becoming a better society -- a better place to live in general -- as a result of greater diversity. When he concludes that a clampdown on immigration would make it a "much poorer and less interesting place," he obviously doesn't just mean it would be harder to find cheap nannies and gardeners.

So, step one in advancing this discussion might be to stop putting arguments in the guy's mouth that he's not making. This is someone whose job has been to help a major political party compete for blocs of voters. He believes -- and he makes clear that this is his own interpretation -- that that party had praiseworthy policy goals that it didn't defend forthrightly, but should. He thinks the party's (and government's) leadership could and should explain to British voters, including those in the "sticks," why immigration and diversity benefit them, and should ask for their votes on that basis. You may think that won't work and/or isn't a good policy to begin with. But it's not the position of some kind of co-conspirator against the working class, it's a good statement of how political leaders ought to behave.

This is ridiculous on several levels.

1. 50-60 million people are poor, uneducated, rural whites? Where does that number come from? According to the Census, in 2000 21% of Americans lived in rural areas. So, for that statistic to be true every single one of those people would have to be poor, white and uneducated. I don't think so.

2. American literature ignores the white working class? Since when? What about -- off the top of my head -- Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy, Marilynne Robinson? Or a huge chunk of mystery novels -- James Lee Burke, Sarah Paretsky?

3. Why should I or anyone be more "loyal" to people who live hundreds or thousands of miles away from me just because they are white and were born in this country, than I am to *my neighbors* -- people in my community, who I see every day, who I know make my city a better place to live?

I can't make heads or tails of why you think the former person is morally superior to the latter.

***If my comment from the prior post appears in this post, please forgive me. Captcha refreshed and I did not check to see which text was in the box before posting. My fault entirely. This is the comment I intended to post.***

====

*Because in this situation you have a politician baldfacedly admitting that his government had a hidden motive, one that his government obscured from the voters.*

Yes. And that is different from the situation we face on an almost daily basis here in the US how? We have had administration after administration from both major parties who only give immigration a thought when it benefits their campaigns, and today's occupants of power are little different than those who went before them on this. We have an immigration policy that is skewed to favor those interests that push the hardest on keeping the status quo in immigration, that being the businesses that use these laborers to bring us, the consumer, cheaper food and hospitality accommodations. And while we do not have a memo showing how this is the hidden policy of the government, it has been fairly well documented in the media that this is the basis of the policy.

*Further, can you imagine the heated reaction any sort of organized boycott against immigration labor would set off? There'd be criminal prosecutions?*

If you as a consumer refused to do business with those employers, large and small, who are the impetus behind our current immigration situation, how could that be litigated against you? For example, as Mr. Dreher has no doubt pointed out numerous times with his "crunchy con" approach to local food marketing, when you purchase produce at Wal-Mart, Cub Foods, or some other large chain operation, are you assured that the producers of those products did not employ illegal laborers in the process? Your purchase of products produced in such a manner simply reinforces the behavior you wish to condemn.

We as consumers cast our own future in the way in which we spend our money. We like to say that we know best how to spend our money, but I would contend that we really have little or no idea how our expenditures can often work against our own interests. As the text Mr. Dreher quoted above states, the justification for this behavior is that the middle class (and, no doubt, the upper class) has benefited from the presence of these non-native workers. How have they benefited? Primarily through paying less for the services provided.

In short, the purse has driven the policy. In today's society a politician who preaches against this perceived "economic benefit" will soon become unemployed. Imagine if you will how an opposition party would deal with a politician who says to the public that the long term benefits of limiting these non-native workers (or illegal workers, in our case) may require additional economic costs on your part as you pay a higher price for products. The opposition would dearly love to be able to run a video of that statement as the centerpiece of their campaign, and the voters would flock to the support of the opposition.

We, the consuming public, shoot ourselves in the foot frequently by voting for politicians who seek to put money in our pocket in this way. The minister in England simply has been caught doing what every successful politician does...crafting policy to cater to the stated desire of the constituency.

To point to this now and say, "how dare he" is somewhat comical, for no doubt the people who run against this policy in the upcoming elections may win on an emotional surge of energy but, once they truly decided to follow through and restrict non-native labor, will face the wrath of the electorate who sees their hotel rooms, child care, and food costs escalate because their native labor force will not accept the wages paid to the non-native force.

I suspect that if the BNP is successful in exploiting this we will no doubt see in the future British voters being serenaded with such campaign slogans as "Whip Inflation Now" and "It's The Economy, Stupid".

*When he concludes that a clampdown on immigration would make it a "much poorer and less interesting place," he obviously doesn't just mean it would be harder to find cheap nannies and gardeners.*

Actually, that is exactly what I see him saying when he offers the following:

"The results in London, and especially for middle-class Londoners, have been highly positive. It's not simply a question of foreign nannies, cleaners and gardeners - although frankly it's hard to see how the capital could function without them.

Their place certainly wouldn't be taken by unemployed BNP voters from Barking or Burnley - fascist au pair, anyone? Immigrants are everywhere and in all sorts of jobs, many of them skilled."

The implication here is that these jobs would not be filled by native labor in the same manner as the non-native labor currently offers. As I read it (and I accept I may be wrong) that is implying that the wages offered for these positions are insufficient to drive native laborers into them. As we know, there is almost no job too dirty or too dangerous that cannot be filled for the proper financial incentive. Otherwise we would not have people mining coal or cleaning sewers in England (or here, for that matter).

So I disagree with you, and suggest that economics is indeed a primary driver of this policy, as the minister's own words seem to indicate. Which again puts the British consumer in the driver's seat on this issue.

Most middle class Brits will read the sentence as applying to all of the white working class in areas like them.

As based on your extensive work viewing Benny Hill videos.

I am 'Your Name' at 12:44

To follow-up on my Wal-Mart comment, a book review appeared in The Christian century last week that offers an interesting explanation as to why poor white labor and/or "rednecks" so earnestly - and proudly - are disloyal to their own interests:

According to Bethany Moreton (To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise) ... In the early 1990s, Wal-Mart made a conscious effort to market "the whole family values thing," as one religious publisher explains. Products included not merely themed Bibles linked to events such as births, weddings and deaths but also Christian popular music, T-shirts and novelty items. Today, Wal-Mart sells over a billion dollars of Christian-themed merchandise every year, making it the number-one merchandiser in the category worldwide (it has put many independent Christian bookstores out of business)...

We also can glimpse Wal-Mart's link to evangelical Christianity in the type of customers it attracts. Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, once commented, "If you want to reach [the Christian] population on Saturday, you do it in Wal-Mart." Wal-Mart customers skew older, whiter, poorer and far more evangelical than those of rival chains, such as Target. For many of these customers, especially in small towns across America where Wal-Mart is often the only retailer left standing, Wal-Mart is more than just a store; it is a place of social gathering, of congregation, that literally has replaced Main Street.

For Moreton, though, the real breakthrough of Wal-Mart as a Christian phenomenon is found in its success in removing the very guilt about consumption that Weber argues so often accompanies Protestantism. She explains: "Unlike earlier department stores, Wal-Mart did not promote self-indulgent luxury. It did not encourage shoppers to imagine themselves as European aristocrats, recipients of fawning personal attention to their comfort." Rather, with its gridlike aisles, warehouse ambiance, and employees who stock rather than serve, Wal-Mart has made the shopping experience something different: a utilitarian act of service to one's family. With Wal-Mart, Moreton writes, "mass buying could mean procuring humble products 'for the family.' . . . Consumer capitalism could be born again." It is not surprising, then, that a high percentage of Wal-Mart shoppers are not only women but mothers; at Wal-Mart shopping is presented as a way to serve the needs of one's husband and children, and hence to fulfill one's spiritual calling in the world.

(And anyway, what is wrong with people who would live in places with names like "Barking" and "Tooting" and "Wapping"? But that's another discussion.)

Heh, within a short distance of my own rural hamlet are the villages of Looneyville and Loco Valley.

Turmarion, thank you for your kind words above. Your comments about country music:

Maybe this is too impressionistic or broad, or idealizing the past, but even as late as my childhood in the 70's, I don't remember the defiant, in-your-face, proud to be a redneck attitude (I'm thinking of the Confederate-flag-on-your-T-shirt type of thing). At one time, being poor was not considered an acceptable excuse for being rude or for being ignorant; and it was certainly unacceptable for someone who was to boast of it. I notice this even in the ambient country music I hear in stores and such--when I was a kid it was Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash singing the "white man's blues"; now I hear all kinds of stuff extolling being a farmer, being sexy because of your tractor, doin' country stuff, not bein' into all that highfalutin stuff, etc.

immediately brought to mind a quote I hear a lot out here in the sticks, "a country boy can survive" which is from the title of a 1981 Hank Williams Jr. song that reached #2 on the Country Music Billboards.

I present the lyrics for your consideration. Keep in mind, these were written more than twenty-five years ago:

The preacher man says it’s the end of time
And the Mississippi River she’s a goin’ dry
The interest is up and the Stock Markets down
And you only get mugged
If you go down town

I live back in the woods, you see
A woman and the kids, and the dogs and me
I got a shotgun rifle and a 4-wheel drive
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

I can plow a field all day long
I can catch catfish from dusk till dawn
We make our own whiskey and our own smoke too
Ain’t too many things these ole boys can’t do
We grow good ole tomatoes and homemade wine
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

Because you can’t starve us out
And you cant makes us run
Cause one-of- ‘em old boys raisin ole shotgun
And we say grace and we say Ma’am
And if you ain’t into that we don’t give a damn

We came from the West Virginia coalmines
And the Rocky Mountains and the and the western skies
And we can skin a buck; we can run a trot-line
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

I had a good friend in New York City
He never called me by my name, just hillbilly
My grandpa taught me how to live off the land
And his taught him to be a businessman
He used to send me pictures of the Broadway nights
And I’d send him some homemade wine

But he was killed by a man with a switchblade knife
For 43 dollars my friend lost his life
Id love to spit some beechnut in that dudes eyes
And shoot him with my old 45
Cause a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

Cause you can’t starve us out and you can’t make us run
Cause one-of- ‘em old boys raisin ole shotgun
And we say grace and we say Ma’am
And if you ain’t into that we don’t give a damn

We’re from North California and south Alabam
And little towns all around this land
And we can skin a buck; we can run a trot-line
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

It applies the racialist argument about intelligence or other desirable cognitive traits being genetic and justifying the overclass(es) in a situation where the perceived hopeless underclass is white and native. Watching the Right try to squirm its way out of that will be good fun.

We're ten steps ahead Jillian, in fact Charles Murray addressed the issue obliquely in The Bell Curve and more directly latter on. The Neatherian chattering classes simply are not in competition in a meaningful way with immigrants -- unlike blue collar workers or, increasingly, technical workers. But the latter -- as intelligent as the former -- don't really have much say in national discourses, to get all PoMo on you. Indeed, much of the verbally proficient New Class -- the ones with degrees in social work for example -- are employed in ministering to the needs of recent immigrants and/or their offspring. Immigrants are a client group for them, but their fee is paid for by the taxpayers at large.

The thing that struck me about the song John E.- Agn. Stoic quoted above was the reference to the New York friend who was killed over 43 dollars. What shocks me now is not the actual killing (too used to *that* news) but the fact that the "hillbilly" and the NY guy were friends. It makes me feel like there's much more social-class-based apartheid now.

"until recently its working class was notorious for being xenophobic in the extreme way monocultural island peoples tended to be"

Speaking as a Brit, Jillian, I'm going to have to ask for some evidence for that assertion, including a definition of what exactly you mean by "xenophobic".

Cultural conservative?

Oh, I haven't forgotten at all -- not that the Jillians of the world have done anything at all to make "hillbillies" bitter or to give them any reason at all for "clinging" to either their religions or their guns.

Also, it's worth noting that Britain was so "xenophobic" that it provided a home to two out of three members of Jillian's personal trinity -- Marx and Freud.

I guess the fact that Nietzsche never got treatment in England for his the syphilis he caught from German rent boys is the reason for the pea under Princess Jillian's mattress where the English are concerned.

But then again, if Nietzsche had been treated earlier or locked up earlier for the syphilis he caught from German rent boys he never would have "killed" God -- in which case, where would Jillian be.

Well, actually, we know where Jillian would be -- at her local holy-roller megachurch, where she almost is now, even with "goot" Uncle Friedrich to bounce her on his knee.

John E.- Agn. Stoic, the Hank, Jr. song is indeed the archetype of the type of thematic stuff I'm talking about. True, Hank was singing it two and a half decades ago; but it seems that half of what I hear on country stations is more or less along those lines these days. I also think Appalachian Prof is correct in that friendships maybe crossed a few more lines a few decades ago than they do now.

There's another sort of Country Music that is wistfully nostalgic "Grandpa, tell me 'bout the good old days" comes to mind.

Okay, I guess I'll have to do some research here...

From the Country Music Billboard, the current top ten songs:

#1 'Only You Can Love Me This Way' - nondescript love song
#2 'Toes' - song about a Mexican vacation - Jimmy Buffet did it better
#3 "Gettin' You Home" - tackier version of 'Lady in Red'
#4 'Welcome to the Future' - semi-related to the topic at hand. Song suggests that things turned out to be not all that bad.
#5 'Cowboy Casanova' - one woman warning another about the Bad Boy the second has fallen for.
#6 'American Ride' - by Toby Keith, thus more likely to be representative of the topic at hand. However, this song is not a city vs. rural thing, but more of a general decline song.
#7 'Need You Now' - Lady pining for her man
#8 'Do I' - A love gone stale song. Probably they need to go out for Piña coladas
#9 "I'm Alive" - Life's kind of tough, but it could be worse.
#10 'Runaway' - Heck with this lame small town life, I'm outta here.

Well, the current top ten doesn't match our thesis, not sure what, if anything that means.

The piece might be more compelling if you didn't depend on the claim of cultural similarity. What disdain there is, as far as I can tell, isn't for working class whites but Southern conservatives. And, for example, you just claimed yesterday that Louisiana was more similar to the Caribbean than to the North. So claims of necessary sympathy would seem to fail.

"perhaps the crunchy cons could address the fact that economies exist to serve humans, not humans to serve the needs of economic financiers"

Er, I don't know which crunchies you've been talking to, but that is exactly what CCs already believe.

As for Britain "enriching itself at the expense of the colonies" during the Empire, that is a highly debatable generalisation. One of the world's leading economic historians, and an expert on imperial history, is Niall Ferguson of Oxford and Harvard. He suggests that, given the very high level of investment in infrastructure, industry, and education in most colonies - to say nothing of the introduction of the rule of law, free speech, free trade and so on - "the notion that British imperialism tended to impoverish colonised countries seems inherently problematic".

His book "Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World" is well worth reading.

In the U.S., balkanization (or what Bill Bishop calls The Big Sort) can affect people who share a racial identity but make their livings in different ways. I was reminded of that during last year’s election, when John McCain’s brother referred to the Virginia inner suburbs that geographically are close to Washington, DC as “Communist country.” The local newspaper reported that his listeners laughed. For me it was a reminder of how dependent politics can be on emphasizing the superiority or inferiority of groups within the U.S. rather than the bonds that unite us. Emphasizing our connectedness takes more work than does divisiveness but would be worth the effort. How often do you hear anyone telling rural or exurban listeners that urbanites and suburbanites have value as citizens and human beings? Or telling city dwellers that rural America are much more than stereotypical rednecks ? Rarely do we hear politicians emphasize that we are stronger as a nation because of the efforts and applied skills of various people in different areas. At its most benign, the sort of identity politics that advocates too often fall back on leads people to be mystified by the values and concerns of people who live in areas unlike their own. At its worst, it leads to comments such as the one I once saw a poster write, in which he praised rural America as the real America, referred to urbanites as evil, and expressed a desire for the deaths of all U.S. officials who governed towns of more than a couple of thousand people.

What irks me is that usually the white working class blames the immigrants taking their jobs, and not the people who take advantage of both the immigrants and the white working class. This story is not exactly new. In the US, there was cheap Irish labor and cheap Chinese labor before slaves were freed, then there was cheap black labor. So did the white working class get mad at millionaire railroad barons?

"culturally conservative, politically libertarian, economically socialist toward all large institutions, particularly that egregious creature of big government, the corporation."

Ok, me likes. :-)

See anyone out there to vote for?

American multiculturalism long predated the widespread use of the term. It assumes the existence of pre-existing cultures, which relate to, and interact with, each other, but does not examine the hierarchies of power underpinning these interactions.