Am I Leaving Dixie for Merely Flyover Land?

I'll soon be leaving this area for ten weeks. From Labor Day to mid-November, I'll be helping a yet unknown campaign for a PAC based in Wisconsin. I'll initially be in Milwaukee but I'm not sure where I'll be working just yet. I've been pondering the differences between here and where I'll land yet wondering if there will be as much as I'm wanting. I know some time away will be positive and I'm thrilled to have this opportunity. Plus I've had about all the humidity I can stand this summer! Might need to let the blogging slide for a bit but I'm still thinking about the options of continued postings.

I'll send you to an old post I did on Dixie Outfitters that I recently mailed to The Young Turks in response to their discussions of Virginia's George Allen "macaca" insults to a Webb staffer. Cenk, Ben, and Jill seemed surprised that this redneck trait (Allen had a "rebel flag" - yes, I know it is a CSA "battle flag" - in his office for years) was still in the South. I explained that I'd worked in two West Georgia schools where the default uniforms were Dixie Outfitters shirts. I truly think there was an inverse relationship between the days of the week a DO shirt was worn and the intelligence of a child (and their parents as well in some ways for letting them express their 1st Amendment Rights - I know my Old Daddy didn't think the 1st applied to parents and I think he was correct - in such a manner). I recall many Unreconstructed Rebels that couldn't tell you a damn thing factually about the American Civil War yet they'd constructed pretty much their entire wardrobe around the Lost Cause.

I also ran across this Sara Robinson post on Ornicus where she'd commented about two years back to a Billmon Whiskey Bar post with a biting commentary on the South. I know plenty of folks were mad at the South after Dubyah came back in. John Egerton wrote of the Southernization of America and I think there's some truth to the idea. Redneckism is spreading like a cancer I fear. Fundamentalism up in Ohio, plus some nasty tricks with the election and Rovian hateful hardball, saved this disaster of an administration. Some "coastal elites" talk with distain about "flyover land" and I'd hate to land in a place where I still feel a bit geared wrong for the area. I'd guess our little village is perhaps as conservative as any so at least I'll not be backing up.

Perahps there's a shift in process yet I'm sure I'll have some 'splainin to do over what the South has wrought to this nation. Peace ... or War!