(no subject)

[malsperanza]

West Virginia:


Indiana:


North Carolina:


Ohio:



The southern part of the Midwest, below the Rust Belt, is largely rural, mixed agricultural and old industries. A lot of it looks and sounds like Appalachia: western PA, southern Ohio and Indiana. If you drive through the Ohio River valley--which is unbelievably beautiful, you will find a lot of small graveyards in the towns and sometimes out in the cornfields. The stones bear the dates 1861, 1862... often all members of one or two families. These were Union soldiers, count on it. Indiana and Ohio spilled a lot of blood to maintain the United States as one country and abolish slavery -- the Ohio and Illinois Rivers were a central route of the Underground Railroad.

Yes, southern Ohio and Indiana, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia speak with a drawl and serve redeye gravy with their biscuits. Yes, those areas still have active outposts of the Ku Klux Klan. But the Confederate battle flag stands for something much vaguer today than what Northerners may think, at least in these Border states. Does it creep me out? Yes, when it flies from the Capitol in Columbia, South Carolina. It's a symbol of treason and should not be there.

But I don't think I'm sentimental or foolish in liking these photos of the good people of small-town America. They are not ironic; they are not funny. They're straightforward declarations of a pov. And this is why Obama has the potential to be one of the great presidents.

These are the people Sarah Palin (that most Northern of Nothuners) is trying to woo with her message of resentment, fear, and class warfare. It's a losing argument, and I hope she runs on it in 2012.