Senator Webb’s roots lie in Southwest Virginia, a region that covers nearly a quarter of the Commonwealth, ranging from as far north as Highland County and as far west as Lee County. Originally settled by the Scots-Irish people, who populated the hills and valleys of the Appalachian Mountain Range, Southwest Virginia became an initial stopping point as these new Americans pushed west to settle throughout the South and Mid-West. A fiercely independent people, the Scots-Irish embraced democratic values and recoiled from elitism and the aristocracy that was so prevalent around eastern cities at the time. They also were deeply patriotic and willingly served in all of our nation’s wars. They held values that still today characterize the region: patriotism, an abiding faith, a sense of service, and a determination to work hard.
That’s part of his personal narrative. Here’s his political narrative, in his own words:
The overwhelming majority — 95% — migrated to the Appalachians in a series of frontier communities that stretched from Pennsylvania to northern Alabama and Georgia.
Why are the 30 million Scots-Irish, who may well be America’s strongest cultural force, so invisible to America’s intellectual elites?
The Democrats lost their affinity with the Scots-Irish during the Civil Rights era, when — because it was the dominant culture in the South — its “redneck” idiosyncrasies provided an easy target during their shift toward minorities as the foundation of their national electoral strategy.
The decline in public education and the outsourcing of jobs has hit this culture hard. Diversity programs designed to assist minorities have had an unequal impact on white ethnic groups and particularly this one, whose roots are in a poverty-stricken South. Their sons and daughters serve in large numbers in a war whose validity is increasingly coming into question. In fact, the greatest realignment in modern politics would take place rather quickly if the right national leader found a way to bring the Scots-Irish and African Americans to the same table, and so to redefine a formula that has consciously set them apart for the past two centuries.
“I’ll be real frank here,” Webb said at a breakfast organized by Bloomberg News. “I think that the manner in which the health-care reform issue was put in front of the Congress, the way that the issue was dealt with by the White House, cost Obama a lot of credibility as a leader.”
Okay, whatever. But what about health care? (pdf)
This is a partial breakdown of the uninsured in Virginia:
The nonelderly uninsured are from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds: about half are white, non‐Hispanic (47.3 percent); 24.3 percent are black, non‐Hispanic; 19.7 percent are Hispanic; 6.5 percent are Asian/Pacific Islander; and 2.0 percent are of other or multiple racial/ethnic backgrounds
These are the Appalachian counties in Virginia:
Virginia: Alleghany, Bath, Bland, Botetourt, Buchanan, Carroll, Craig, Dickenson, Floyd, Giles, Grayson, Henry, Highland, Lee, Montgomery, Patrick, Pulaski, Rockbridge, Russell, Scott, Smyth, Tazewell, Washington, Wise, and Wythe
And this is the Uninsured Rate Among Nonelderly (0-64) in Virginia by Area. Scroll down to the last slide and look at the map.
Every Appalachian county in Virginia has an uninsured rate higher than the state average, sometimes dramatically higher. In the wealthier parts of Virginia, about 9% of people are uninsured. In many parts of Jim Webb’s beloved Appalachia, it’s 17, 18, 19, 20%.
I’m going to kick Jim Webb’s question right back at him:
Why are the 30 million Scots-Irish, who may well be America’s strongest cultural force, so invisible to America’s intellectual elites?
Why indeed, Jim? What about health care? Remember that?
You know, Jim’s “tribe” may not vote for Obama, but they will damn sure benefit from Obama’s health care law. If you’re in the “interest group” that ranges from below poverty level to 400% of poverty level you will benefit from this law.
I don’t have any particular problem with Webb having a personal or political narrative that is grounded in some romantic idea of a tribe, it’s not my thing, but it’s obviously important to him. However. It looks to me like +/- 20% of the people in his tribal region are probably going without basic health care, because they can’t pay for it.
They can’t pay for it, and I feel as if none of us can afford this anymore. We can’t afford romantic narratives that have nothing to do with reality. We can’t afford Justice Scalia musing idly about broccoli to a rapt, adoring, and ass-kissing audience or Barney Frank reflecting aloud on how poor people are political poison or Jim Webb denouncing Obama because Jim Webb was hoping for Andrew Jackson and Americans elected Barack Obama instead. Webb believes, in his heart, that Obama could have gotten Republicans to make a deal on health care? Really? Is he living in a novel?
The point of the health care law was to expand access to health care to those who aren’t getting any. The people who might benefit from that have been completely lost in all this ego-driven, self-aggrandizing bullshit.
Mnemosyne
Somebody should have reminded Webb that Jackson already wiped the Native Americans out, so there wasn’t much opportunity for Obama to do the same.
The romanticism for the racist, genocidal Jackson kind of creeps me out, frankly. There was a recent book about Jackson’s election called The Birth of Modern Politics that got pretty good reviews (and it’s under $9 on Kindle).
Insomniac
Well, trying to get elected trumps all else apparently.
Margarita
Well, probably because they’re pretty much invisible to themselves. Look at which part of the country identifies their ethnicity as “American.”
Where have all the “Scots-Irish” gone? Webb is a bit of a crank on this subject.
schrodinger's cat
I have never liked Jim Webb, he somehow strikes me as one rude arrogant and misogynist SOB, not that much better than Macaca Allen.
Patricia Kayden
I was glad that he beat Macaca, but he strikes me as a DINO. Hope a real Democrat gets his seat.
Xenos
As a scots-irish guy with ancestors who were settled in Appalachia in the 17th century, let me say that Webb is full of crap. Nationalist essentialist arguments are horrible misuses of history and anthropology, and his “Born Fightin'” conceal a lot more history than it explains.
Most of the South’s ‘Union Men’ were scots-irish too. To hell with the confederates, whatever their ethnicity.
EconWatcher
Webb is an interesting mystery, by appearances a paleoconservative packaged as a Democrat. I voted for him, but I don’t think I got much for my vote except keeping Allen out of the Senate for 6 years (which is enough, don’t get me wrong).
He tried to do some interesting things, like starting a conversation about our out-of-control penal system. But he got nowhere, and it’s hard to gauge whether his heart was really in it.
It’s as if it only occurred to him after he was elected that a single Senator doesn’t have much power.
yopd1 (formerly BDeevDad)
I’m convinced that:
Liberals are never happy unless their entire agenda is passed.
Conservatives are never happy unless none of the other sides agenda is passed (their agenda be damned).
gypsy howell
You know, there are days when I start to think Aaaahh fuck ’em. if they can’t get over their wounded pride from losing a war that happened 150 fucking years ago, and get over their racial animosity that insists that by god somebody somewhere oughtta be lower on the societal totem pole than they are, and they pigheadedly refuse to connect the gigantic dots right in front of their faces to see who is keeping them down and miserable and in poverty, then why should I give a shit.
And since when are these people are invisible to American’s elites? These are exactly the sort of people the elites pander to day in and day out. Their know-nothing ignorance is celebrated by the news media 24 hours a fucking day.
Hey, I got MY insurance (yes, I pay through the nose for it). If they’re proud of their lack of health care and their lack of jobs and their lack of money, who am I to try to improve their lives.
Napoleon
On a related matter, this book is great on the subject of the Scot-Irish and Appalachia, as well as the other American “Nations”. I could not recommend it enough:
http://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0670022969
Betty Cracker
@gypsy howell: This.
ericblair
@Margarita:
I guess this is like hauling out “Judeo-Christian” when you want to talk about what a certain Christian sect wants. It’s nothing to do with the Irish, and nothing to do with Scots, since that was generations ago, so why are you trying to tie them into this? You can talk about white rural poverty without trying to reinforce yet another tribal divide in this country. And yes, Obamacare is going to be a godsend for them.
schrodinger's cat
Isn’t it ironic to have guys like Jim Webb (ex-Republican), Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, castigating these strawmen elites, when they themselves are the very embodiment of the word.
jibeaux
I just want to say that kay’s posts are a thing of beauty. So much diligence, unique content, and the logic is devastating. I could just smooch ’em.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Betty, I is a fangirl of your writing. How are your little chicks doing? We need an update soon.
ericblair
@gypsy howell:
They didn’t: they were on our side. They didn’t have much truck with the Southern aristocracy bullshit and the slave state. Whatever flags get waved around now and whatever racial problems they’ve got, they weren’t Confederates back then.
PeakVT
Nice post, Kay.
Why are the 30 million Scots-Irish, who may well be America’s strongest cultural force, so invisible to America’s intellectual elites?
Because, Jimbo, that cultural force basically rejects all intellectualism and, at this point in time, vast swathes of reality.
Craig
I like the bit in the profile about how one quadrant (the southwestern one) of Virginia corresponds to roughly one quarter of the area of the state. What are the odds?
dollared
I love you, Kay. I’ll take your point one further: We don’t have the money anymore to compromise with terrorists.
Clinton could play that game because of rising national income. It’s too late now.
We need to move GDP out of Finance and back into productive activities, because we need the velocity of commmerce that finance does not provide. We need 35% of the income of the rich because we need to invest in education, so we can reap the rewards 10-50 years out. We need single payer for all because it will drop the Med- Pharma complex back to 14% of GDP, because each point of GDP spent on health care costs us 1,000,000 jobs. We need to cut defense by 30% because it’s insanely inefficient. We need to cut Pharma’s take for all the same reasons. We can’t let 25% of our workers retire early, languish poverty or sit in prison. We need their contributions.
We’ve been buying off the rentiers and the racists to buy the peace. We need to go to war. With or without Jim Webb.
gypsy howell
That makes them waving the confederate flag now, both figuratively and literally, even more enraging.
balconesfault
I’ve been hearing the “Obama abandoned the white working man” thing over and over – and I keep pointing out exactly what Kay does here: the ACA makes it so that all those contract workers out there fixing ACs and putting roofs on houses and running small car repair shops and the like will be able to afford health insurance for them and their families, despite a household income of 45K/year. Sure, that wasn’t done SPECIFICALLY to benefit the white working man, but it benefits them nonetheless, and we’ve been lacking a major publicity effort to tell them that it’s going to be a good thing that Junior can get the holes patched up from his shotgun accident without the family declaring bankruptcy.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: Thanks! I had to chase down a rogue chick who escaped the heat-lamp pen in my office today (she shat everywhere, naturally), but aside from that, they’re fine. We’re moving them to the outdoor Taj MaHen soon. I’ll do an update — y’all won’t believe how big they are!
@jibeaux: Co-signed! Kay rocks!
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Do you have cats? Are your dogs interested in them at all.
The Other Chuck
@gypsy howell:
Because they’ve made it their mission to drag you down with them.
Bulworth
Ah, here we go again. The Process. If not for The Process of the thing. Sure, maybe the substance is OK or maybe it’s not. But the important thing here is The Process, which just wasn’t right. Apparently. Sigh.
Bulworth
Oh that. Yeah, but Death Panels! And Hands Off My Healthcare! Government Takeover Of Healthcare!
No worries, uninsured independent contractors, temp workers. The Supremes are about to get their hands off your healthcare. And if they don’t do it, then President Paul Ryan will. Dontcha feel better?
Zifnab25
Meh. Webb is retiring. He did his single tour of duty and loyally voted the way Reid told him to often enough that it doesn’t particularly matter what he says or does now.
If he wants to wank to the right, that’s his privilege. I’m sure the country clubs in Virginia have stiff standards against negro-association of its members, and Webb isn’t going to want to miss out on those sweet tee times.
Bulworth
There you go. See. It ain’t the lack of healthcare got these folks down. It’s affirmative action that excludes them from…I’m not sure, but something.
eemom
So glad you posted this, Kay. As noted yesterday, I am ENRAGED. I take it as a personal betrayal by FUCK Jim Webb, whom I’ve supported since before anybody knew who the fuck he was.
FUCK Jim Webb. FUCK Jim Wenn. FUCK Jim Webb. It cannot be said often enough.
schrodinger's cat
@Bulworth: My old neighbor who was a young roofer (working class white guy) loves Obama, he was happy that he could be on his mom’s insurance, at least for a while. I think it is a myth that all working class white men hate Obama. BTW this was in NY. I have no idea whether he was Scotts-Irish or whatever, I mean how can one tell?
Suzanne Holland
@yopd1 (formerly BDeevDad): A huge yes!! Perfectly put!!!
sharl
How Do You Solve a Problem Like
Mariathe Scots-Irish Hill Folk? Le Sigh…I don’t come from those parts, and have no expertise on them – other than going to school with their kids when they came north to work in the Rust Belt, before it became that – but what a frustrating bunch of hard-heads so many of them seem to be. {Begin over-generalizing} The kind who can figure out how to hold together the rattling transmission on a ’68 Chevy death machine with baling wire and Duco, but refuse to acknowledge the moments when self-sufficiency ain’t sufficient, and then resent the hell out of those who DO know when to ask for help.{End over-generalizing}
First off, on getting the S-Is and AAs together, Sen. Webb ain’t the first to come up with that. I’m old enough to somewhat remember the 1988 Presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson – yeah, I know, along with Jimmy Carter and Al Sharpton, one of history’s Greatest Monsters! – and here’s a pretty good article on his visits to Appalachia. Bottom line: Jackson innately understood those hillbillies’ problems, and they in turn were deeply appreciative. They may not be inclined to ask for help, but like most folks, they do appreciate being understood and treated with human decency, even if some amongst them act like total jackasses (and what societal subset doesn’t have some jackasses?).
They were the late Joe Bageant’s people – here’s an appreciation of him from one of the folks probably best suited for this particular deceased individual, a fellow member of the tiny Redneck Scholarship Club. Bageant’s the guy who wrote Deer Hunting With Jesus. Not exactly a book to lift your spirits, if you’re feeling a bit down-&-out.
It’s a shame that an educated man like Jim Webb can’t express himself with a greater degree of wisdom and grace than is offered by the worst elements of his constituency.
El Cid
I have a lot of Scots-Irish in my descent, and grew up in North Carolina, lots of Appalachian relatives in the extended family, and let me say fuck all this “Scots-Irish” bullshit.
I’ve almost never encountered anyone mouthing shit about their Scots-Irish heritage who wasn’t using it like some sort of white nationalist Lost Cause neo-Confederate bitter anti-modernist bullshit.
Calouste
There were no Native Americans living in those hills before the 17th century? Or did they just not count in Webb’s view?
gene108
@balconesfault:
You forgot to mention how “President” Barry Soetero will be sending midnight-raiding-jack-booted-Federals into people’s homes and confiscating their weapons.
One of the major reasons a lot of rural people vote Republican is they are convinced Obama (and Democrats in general) will take away their guns, just like Bill Clinton did in 1994 and Diane Feinstein has a quote from that era talking about banning guns.
Chris
@ericblair:
I’m curious;
1) Where did the South get their cannon fodder, then? And all their supporters who were not part of the slave-owning aristocracy?
2) What was it that set those parts of the South, like West Virginia or East Tennessee, apart from the others in making them side with the Union?
Broad questions I know, but this kind of stuff always piques my interest.
Steve
This may be one of the most devastating posts I have ever read.
El Cid
@Chris: Mountain dwelling Southerners did not run plantations, and it was primarily plantation elites running an economy based on large-scale slaveholding. They encountered government mainly in the form of taxation and repression, and saw the large plantation owners as the ones who sought money and soldiers for their war, and thus weren’t interested. Plantation style economies only worked with certain types of crops and industries, and those weren’t to be found too much in the Appalachians and other climates, so you didn’t have as direct a system rooted in a plantation super-rich run society.
El Cid
We need to start shouting about some long-ignored sub-group within the “Scots-Irish” so that we can bitterly, irredentistly, and balefully whine about how all these “Scots-Irish elites” sully our heritage and are responsible for the destruction of our noble sub-group’s culture.
Chris
@El Cid:
But outside of the mountains and closer to the plantations, the regular white folk were more okay with the slave-owners? I mean, the Confederacy must’ve gotten a popular base from somewhere, other than just the slave-owning Gentlemen.
Corner Stone
Yeah, Webb may be a prick. But I will crawl on hands and knees over broken glass to vote for him this next election!
slim's tuna provider
“embraced democracy”? does mr. webb recall the whiskey rebellion, our young country’s first and possibly most brazen challenge to democracy? it was the same then as it is now, unfortunately — the hill people are (understandably) not thrilled that the more populous, richer and wimpier city folk get to tell them what to do. it even happened in the even then liberal massachusetts – shay’s rebellion. not sure what the democratic party can really do for folks like that — if the Tennessee Valley Authority didn’t do the trick, what will?
balconesfault
@sharl: Bageant’s Post “Drink, Pray, Fuck, Fight: How the Scots-Irish screwed up America” is a classic that still bears reading.
http://coldtype.net/Assets.05/Essays/02.Joe.Scots.pdf
Unfortunately, former Naval Academy Prof Webb just decided to forego a teachable moment, as they say.
Corner Stone
@Patricia Kayden:
Nope. Not so much. It’s either Tim Kaine or George Allen. My money is on Allen taking that seat.
AliceBlue
@Chris:
Tribalism. If you didn’t own slaves, there was a good chance that you were related to someone who did, either by blood or marriage. It’s also important to remember that both sides thought the war would only last a couple of weeks; hence the rush to enlist. It was going to be fun!
According to Shelby Foote, some Union soldiers asked a captured Confederate why he was fighting, and his reply was “Because you’re down here.”
sharl
@balconesfault: Oh wow, how did I manage to have missed that one?
Thanks so much for that link!
dollared
@eemom: I still hope that there are things in your life that make you happy. Besides sitting idly in an enraged state, that is.
MonkeyBoy
Webb seems to be confusing Scots-Irish with Hillbillies or in more polite usage “Uplanders”
While most Hillbillies are Scots-Irish it doesn’t go the other way, The Scots-Irish were fairly mobile and often the leading edge at new frontiers. One branch of my ancestry initially were in Virginia, then moved to North Carolina, then Arkansas, then New Mexico. Many SI have dispersed into the general US population to be found in most all locations and and social ranks.
The present day “Uplanders” are those SI that moved to the Appalachians or Ozarks around 150 years ago and haven’t moved since.
P.S. John McCain is Scots-Irish.
eemom
@dollared:
You mean like having my own personal cadre of dedicated stalker-trolls like you on this blog? That’s always good for a grin or two.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
Bullshit. What do you know about Virginia?
Last poll has Obama stomping the Romtron EVEN with Bobby McD on the ticket.
kc
Go, Kay!
BigSouthern
Ugggggggggooooooooood, why? I remember not being able to get too excited when he beat Allen, and now I remember why.
At least stump for Kaine on your way out the door. Then you’re free to eat shit and write however many books about how awesome your white ethnics of choice are, everyone knows that flatland cracker trash doesn’t compare to the noble upland hillbilly stock.
Corner Stone
@eemom: What does that have to do with the Senate race? And my money is on Allen to win. But if Kaine does squeak one out, we’re still no better off than if Webb were still in there.
Corner Stone
@eemom: Learn how to fucking read you stupid hump.
Corner Stone
“munch munch munch”
mk3872
Do we NEED any more proof that this Congress has been our nation’s worst in history?
How did ANYTHING get passed in the past 3 years with idiots like Webb who are supposed to be working for the president’s own party?
And why don’t the GOP eat their own like Dems do?
Clark Stooksbury
Webb may be full of bullshit on this, but some of you should think real hard about who he knocked out of the Senate.
Villago Delenda Est
On my father’s side I’m of Scots-Irish heritage as well, and let me say without a doubt that on this, Jim Webb does not speak for me.
mattH
This is bullshit. Plantation owners were just as Scots-Irish as the “Appalachian Hillbillies”. In fact it had a direct impact on the underlying social structure of the pre-Revolutionary South that persists in many places to this day. Hierarchical, patriarchal and tribal; the word Clannish got it’s meaning from them, not by being applied to them.
AxelFoley
@EconWatcher:
Same here. I knew he was the lesser of two evils compared to Allen, but damn if I didn’t have to really hold my nose to vote for him.
Chuck Butcher
That is a Democrat… of sorts. But any Democrat trumps a GOPer – right? One of the reasons for a label like GOPer or Democrat is to know who is on your side.
AxelFoley
@gypsy howell:
Ex-fuckin’-actly. The so-called “real ‘Muricans” we hear about all the time.
Corner Stone
@mattH:
Fascinating.
Mnemosyne
@Clark Stooksbury:
Webb is retiring, so it’s not like we’re bashing someone who’s up for re-election. As Big Southern said, the minimum that Webb could do would be to support the Democrat who hopes to succeed him, but apparently he doesn’t even have that much loyalty to the party he supposedly represented for six years.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
Why does it not surprise me that Texas trailer trash like yourself has never heard of coattails.
rikyrah
he wouldn’t even man up and run again.
so fuck Jim Webb.
and his tribe?
part of those folks who cling to Whiteness over what’s in their best economic interest, and have done so for generations.
I’ve said it before and will say it again: I’m not one to hold their hands. let ’em starve.
rikyrah
kay,
great post.
eemom
@Mnemosyne:
I guess there’s a lesson to be learned: you can take the republican out of the asshole but you can’t take the asshole out of the republican. (Webb used to be a republican.)
Corner Stone
@eemom: Yes, yes. I mention a direct race and you comment on a race that will not decide the Senate race. How the Presidential race influences the VA Senate race is yet TBD, in any aspect.
And what’s wrong with a trailer? They can be quite comfortable.
karen marie
@Chuck Butcher: I remember when that incident with Bush happened in 2006(Bush asked Webb, “How’s your boy” – Webb’s son was a Marine serving in Iraq – and Webb responded, “I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President.” Bush replied, “That’s not what I asked you. How’s your boy?” Webb answered, “That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President.”) and the lefty blogosphere was nominating Webb to be the Democratic candidate for president. People were easily excited. Still are.
karen marie
@Corner Stone: Beats being worse off with Allen in that seat.
Just Some Fuckhead
Joe Bageant used to write a lot on the subject of the Scots-Irish, may he rest in peace. While I admired Joe greatly, I never thought the Scots-Irish stuff was anything more than an attempt to mythologize what was essentially a hazy, forever-on-the-move, bastardized pedigree.
All my people are from Allegheny, Rockbridge, Augusta, Bath and Highland Counties. English surname, Scottish religion (Presbyterian) and mostly German-American ancestors.
kay
@rikyrah:
But that’s the thing. Rather than saying to them “the truth is a lot of your kids are on Medicaid and you work in low wage jobs without benefits so this law will help you if you’re under 200% of poverty, AND YOU ARE” he goes to a Bloomberg roundtable?
eemom
@karen marie:
yup, I remember that.
rikyrah
@kay:
that’s the thing about Webb.
NOT ONCE does he stand up and tell the truth to these folks.
he thinks they should be coddled, and I should understand why they cling to their Whiteness.
he can tell that shyt to someone else.
sharl
The late Joe Bageant got letters from fellow SI/Uplanders/whatever. Several mentioned Sen. Webb. This looks like one of the better ones – here’s an excerpt from it that I think back’s up Kay’s point succinctly:
A-yup.
Here’s a contribution from a libertarianish escapee from the Hills (via his parents’ doings) – generally thoughtful and nuanced, despite his admiration for IGMFY-style conservatism.
And finally, a letter from someone taking issue with Bageant’s interpretation, and definitely NOT a fan of Sen. Webb or his cultural claims.
I think the point made by JSF and others is a good one, i.e., there probably isn’t a “Scots/Scotch-Irish” character as such – certainly not something in the DNA. But there may well be something to isolated communities living in hills and hollers, too afraid to move out, and thereby incubating some attitudes that collectively make them identifiable as a separate cultural phenomenon. Anyone who has seen nature shows knows that tribalism is some powerful shit, and will have a big hold on folks not willing to step outside the herd, too afraid to employ their (presumably) DNA-enabled sentience.
Just Some Fuckhead
@sharl: Sorry, hadn’t read the comments to see that you all had already mentioned Bageant. :)
Town
The Shenandoah Valley is very much German-American.
Jamey
What’s this Scots-Irish bullshit. I thought they were just “Americans.” Fuck Webb and his phony sociological rationale for good ole fashioned nigra-hatin’.
Jamey
@Xenos: My sentiments, exactly–albeit stated less impatiently and more artfully.
Mike in NC
He’s quitting the Senate after one term. I was pretty excited to vote for anybody running against that weasel bastard George Allen, but Webb’s been a huge disappointment.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mike in NC:
Kaine is a disappointment in many ways as well, but he hasn’t been mean to Obama yet so he’s cool.
AxelFoley
@mk3872:
Oh, but the hear the PL tell it, it’s all President Obama’s fault. Not the Dems in Congress who backstab and kneecap him every chance they get.
Joe
The term is “Scotch-Irish”. Goddamn political correctness. Keep up that silly “s” crap, and the ghosts of my ancestors will haunt you.
Sen. Webb always responded to my letters with substantive replies, which few others of my Congressmen have ever done. I will miss him, because this is Virginia, and you’re not going to get anything better.
AxelFoley
@sharl:
This, this, dammit—THIS!
Been saying this shit for years. The poor whites, who at the same time hate the elites and want to be like the elites, have been doing their dirty work for them for centuries.
Most of the Confederate dead? Poor whites who didn’t own slaves nor really had a dog in the fight.
Most members of the Klan, Neo Nazis and other hate groups? Poor whites willing to get their hands dirty (or should I say bloody?) to keep them niggers and Jews down, while ironically rich white folks continue to treat them like shit.
The fact that they’re the largest group in the U.S. and overwhelmingly vote for the GOP and against their own best interests is what’s holding this nation back.
AxelFoley
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Still a fuckhead, I see.
accidentalfission
In case anyone didn’t know, Jim Webb was a high-and-tight, stract, military, wack-job before he calmed down a little bit. His book, http://www.amazon.com/Fields-Fire-James-Webb/dp/0553583859/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334881843&sr=8-1, was cited as a good example of officership during my time at one of the five “federal service academies.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_academy#United_States
Just Some Fuckhead
@AxelFoley: The Obots here are pretty simple.
Elizabelle
I supported Jim Webb and did a LOT of volunteering and canvassing for him.
He has disappointed me with this statement, and a few other things, although he’s been a good senator in many ways.
Oddly, I don’t recall ever being dreadfully disappointed (like this) by John Warner, who was a very decent man and senator. He stood up to the idiots in his own party who were trying to nominate Oliver North.
That’s courage.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
This isn’t about being mean to Obama, fuckie. This is about being a lying scumbag about the ACA and how desperately needed it is by these people he purports to speaks for.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: That simplistic take ignores that he voted for ACA.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
That has nothing to do with, and in no way excuses, the despicableness of what he said.
In fact if you ask me it ADDS to it. Why DID he vote for it, if he didn’t believe in it?
Oh, I know — maybe because he hadn’t made up his mind at that point not to run again and didn’t want to fuck over his prospects.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: Maybe he said it because he thought it costed Obama a lot of credibility?
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I don’t see how he — or anyone — could honestly believe that.
Unless you somehow consider Obama and the Act being the target of so many vicious lies a lack of “credibility” on Obama’s part, which makes no sense.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: This conversation sorta reminds me of a conversation I had with a RL friend on FB. She’s a radical libertarian (per Orrin Hatch) who posted something unflattering about Obama and “gun rights”. I pointed out, of course, that Obama had actually expanded gun rights and cited the lifting of the ban in national parks. She sputtered like crazy, and eventually spit out that it didn’t matter what he did, all that mattered is what he said (or more importantly how she interpreted what he said) about “bitter people clinging to their guns.”
fasteddie9318
O Allah, why won’t anybody think of white people??? Will this country ever elect a white president??
Kay, this was a masterpiece.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
oh fuckie, fuckie. And here I thought you’d mellowed after your splendidly long absence.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but a dumb ass comparison of what I said above to wingnut-sputter about Obama says more about your fundamental lack of intelligence than it does about me.
Clearly the fact has eluded that good, solid skull of yours, emphatically though I said it, that I LIKED Jim Webb — far from being predisposed to judge him as Ms. RL was with Obama.
Corner Stone
I really don’t care what Webb says about much of anything. I will crawl on hands and knees over broken glass to vote for him this next election!
KrisWV
@Calouste: Well, in Appalachia, the Cherokee managed to survive in NC, and the Iriquois up north. But in the Appalachian portions of PA, WV, OH, VA and KY, native populations were neither robbed nor oppressed — they were just flat out exterminated. Not something to be proud of…
psycholinguist
So, I teach at a college in the heart of Appalachia, right in the foothills of the smoky mountains. Most of our students are from this area. A student came in to my office this morning, a really great student – first generation college student, her grandpa was a moonshiner, dad was a coal miner, etc. Also, she’s head of our student young republican organization. She was very excited because she just got a research position – I warned her about checking out benefits in addition to salary, and she said “no problem, I’m on my Daddy’s insurance.” I couldn’t help myself, I made her tell me exactly why that was so, and reminded her about the impact the supreme court case was going to have on her. Baby steps.
Evolving Deep Southerner
Damn, Kay. I’m late to this party and haven’t read the first comment, but this post kicks ass.
priscianusjr
@Xenos: It’s fittingly ironic that this discussion is going on at the time of the death of Levon Helm. To millions all of the country, hell, all over the world, Levon Helm is an American cultural hero. His credentials in Mr. Webb’s tribe were impeccable, but he spoke for us all.
“This was healing music, but it was in no way peaceful. Levon’s voice made sure of that. It was tough and sound and brooked no easy answers. (When, an album later, he voiced the story of Virgil Kane, a grunt in the Confederate army, he managed to push the story beyond politics. You swear by the mud below your feet and you make a pact with the land that nothing can break.) It was a Southern voice, certainly, but there was in it that universal sense that we are all in this great experiment together, that we hold a number of truths to be self-evident and the ones that Mr. Jefferson listed were only the very beginning of them. That there is a commonwealth that binds us, through the worst of what we can do to each other, and the worst of what we can make of our promise. For all the wild rhetoric and the political posturing, and for all the horror that extended from My Lai to the floor of the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel and back again, that we all had an America to come back to, no matter how long we were away, no matter even if we were half-past dead. Because that America was the America of the tall tale, the underground history, the renegade, buccaneer country that belongs to all of us. Levon Helm told those stories. He gave that history a voice that we could all hear over the din of the times.
“He was the true Voice of America, as far as I’m concerned.”
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/levon-helm-america-8173059#ixzz1sYD30yfl
And what about “King Harvest”?”I work for the union,‘Cause she’s so good to me; And I’m bound to come out on top,
That’s where she said I should be.”
FlipYrWhig
Just so you know, when you long for Democrats to be “economic populists” rather than pro-business running dogs, the chances are good that you’re going to get Jim Webb in there, not Sherrod Brown. Webb is an ornery guy who cares about unsexy topics like veterans and prison reform. He’s weird on race and gender and sexuality, better on class and inequality (remember his Democratic response to one of the Bush SOTU’s?). The guy he was running against in the primary was an Evan Bayh type. That’s the choice if you want a Democrat FROM VIRGINIA. Webb has been disappointing to me on many levels, but I don’t know why the idea of crawling over glass to vote for him is supposed to be so laughable. Senator George Allen is a nasty piece of work, a racist and a moron, and Webb’s beating him was quite satisfying, and I’d definitely do it all over again.
Also, everyone who ever said that Obama didn’t get better bills because he didn’t use the Bully Pulpit, file this profile away for future reference. This is what a BUNCH of Democrats are like. They don’t do what Obama wants or what the public says they want. They are grudgingly loyal at best. And if they get turned off, they tune out or retire. It’s a slog with them every time. It doesn’t matter how nicely or how angrily you ask. They do their own thing.
Gretchen
@Chris:
Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic wrote a long series of fascinating posts about the Civil War, much of it from the point of view of common people and slaves. Marvelous stuff and well worth checking out.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
hey Flip — as usual I agree with you….but don’t you think Webb crossed a line there?