Spanish
life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
-
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain.
If
you've arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra,
see my web page here.
Life
in Spain:-
- A comment from Lenox of Business Over Tapas prompted me to look at how various countries define 'a billion'. In brief, for Anglos it's a thousand million but for Hispanic countries it's a million million - as it used to be in the UK. See here for more on these 'long' and 'short' scales. When I reported on the Mulos drug trial yesterday, I cited the prosecution's demand for fines totalling €2.3 billion. In fact, the newspaper had it as €2,300 million. Which is €2.3 billion (I think) in the Anglo world, though not in the Hispanic world. Which is why it was written as €2,300 million. Except it wasn't, as numbers are written differently in continental Europe. It was €2.300 million. And, if - as is often the ludicrous case in Spain - it had been taken to 2 decimal points, it would've been €2.300,55 million. All of which makes for fun for Anglos when filling in their tax form here. As I'm doing today . . .
- I have never believed that Brits resident in the EU would lose their rights. It simply made no sense to me. Hence I wasn't at all surprised to read of this development. Perhaps the panic will die down now. Or at least reduce.
- Should you want to know how the multi-million Invent a New Tune scam worked, you'll be interested in this schematic:-
- Here are the (nation-wide?) consequences of speeding - the fines to pay and your points lost. One interesting aspect is that you can get away with being 23% over the limit in a 30 zone but only 8% in a 120 zone. Logical??
- And here's evidence that the limit can be as low as 20kph or 13mph. This is on a narrow, winding road on a steep hill near my house. I would've thought it rather unnecessary, as anyone going faster than this would end up with a granite sandwich.
- Staying local . . . You'll all recall that the (impractical) limit on the steep hill to my house is 30kph, or 19mph. Imagine my surprise then to see this temporary sign when approaching road works there yesterday:-
I wonder if one could successfully plead its existence if booked for doing 38 or 39, as per the chart above.
Here's what might or might not be a new way to win - or lose - money here in Galicia . . .
You choose a spot in a field and walk away with a tidy sum if a lone cow chooses to shit there first. It must provide hours of fun, waiting for the cow to perform. I guess one chews the cud when doing so.
Still in
Galicia . . .
Here's an article on
another traditional pastime. Well, more of a job really:-
Finally - and more seriously:-
- Here's the Greek ex-Finance Minister on his tussle with the EU and ECB technocrats. Specifically on the 'hidden agenda' of the politicos.
- I recommend a read of the article at the end of this post on the attitudes of poor rural whites in the USA. Truly astonishing:
Today's cartoon:-
Another Bill Tidy classic . . .
|
"Yeah, and, if they abolish slavery, how does a penniless kid jazz trumpeter like me get to New Orleans?" |
THE ARTICLE
An Insider's View: The
Dark Rigidity of Fundamentalist Rural America - Forsetti's Justice
As the aftermath of the
election of Donald Trump is being sorted out, a common theme keeps
cropping up from all sides: "Democrats failed to understand
white, working-class, fly-over America.”
Trump supporters are
saying this. Progressive pundits are saying this. Talking heads
across all forms of the media are saying this. Even some Democratic
leaders are saying this. It doesn’t matter how many people say it,
it is complete BS. It is an intellectual/linguistic sleight of hand
meant to draw attention away from the real problem. The real problem
isn’t East Coast elites who don’t understand or care about rural
America. The real problem is that rural Americans don't understand
the causes of their own situations and fears and they have shown no
interest in finding out. They don’t want to know why they feel the
way they do or why they are struggling because they don’t want to
admit it is in large part because of the choices they’ve made and
the horrible things they’ve allowed themselves to believe.
I grew up in rural
Christian white America. You’d be hard-pressed to find an area of
the country with a higher percentage of Christians or whites. I spent
most of the first 24 years of my life deeply embedded in this
culture. I religiously (pun intended) attended their Christian
services. I worked off and on on their rural farms. I dated their
calico-skirted daughters. I camped, hunted and fished with their
sons. I listened to their political rants at the local diner and
truck stop. I winced at their racist/bigoted jokes and epithets that
were said more out of ignorance than animosity. I have watched the
town I grew up in go from a robust economy with well-kept homes and
infrastructure to a struggling economy with shuttered businesses,
dilapidated homes and a broken-down infrastructure over the past 30
years. The problem isn’t that I don’t understand these people.
The problem is they don’t understand themselves or the reasons for
their anger and frustration.
In deep-red America,
the white Christian god is king, figuratively and literally.
Religious fundamentalism has shaped most of their belief systems.
Systems built on a fundamentalist framework are not conducive to
introspection, questioning, learning, or change. When you have a
belief system built on fundamentalism, it isn’t open to outside
criticism, especially by anyone not a member of your tribe and in a
position of power. The problem isn’t that coastal elites don’t
understand rural Americans. The problem is that rural America doesn’t
understand itself and will never listen to anyone outside
its bubble. It doesn’t matter how “understanding” you are, how
well you listen, what language you use…if you are viewed as an
outsider, your views will be automatically discounted. I’ve had
hundreds of discussions with rural white Americans and whenever I
present them any information that contradicts their entrenched
beliefs, no matter how sound, how unquestionable, how obvious, they
will not even entertain the possibility that it might be true. Their
refusal is a result of the nature of their fundamentalist belief
system and the fact that I’m the enemy because I’m an educated
liberal.
At some point during
the discussion, they will say, “That’s your education talking,”
derogatorily, as a general dismissal of everything I said. They truly
believe this is a legitimate response, because to them education is
not to be trusted. Education is the enemy of fundamentalism because
fundamentalism, by its very nature, is not built on facts. The
fundamentalists I grew up around aren’t anti-education. They want
their kids to know how to read and write. They are against quality,
in-depth, broad, specialized education. Learning is only valued up to
a certain point. Once it reaches the level where what you learn
contradicts doctrine and fundamentalist arguments, it becomes
dangerous.
I watched a lot of my fellow students who were smart, stop
their education the day they graduated high school. For most of the
young ladies, getting married and having kids was more important than
continuing their learning. For many of the young men, getting a
college education was seen as unnecessary and a waste of time. For
the few who did go to college, what they learned was still filtered
through their fundamentalist belief systems. If something they were
taught didn’t support a preconception, it would be ignored and
forgotten the second it was no longer needed to pass an exam.
Knowing this about
their belief system and their view of outside information that
doesn’t support it, telling me that the problem is coastal elites
not understanding them completely misses the point.
Another problem with
rural Christian white Americans is they are racists. I’m not
talking about white hood-wearing, cross-burning, lynching racists
(though some are). I’m talking about people who deep down in their
heart of hearts truly believe they are superior because they are
white. Their white god made them in his image and everyone else is a
less-than-perfect version, flawed and cursed.
The religion in which I
was raised taught this. Even though they’ve backtracked on some of
their more racist declarations, many still believe the original
claims. Non-whites are the color they are because of their sins, or
at least the sins of their ancestors. Blacks don’t have dark skin
because of where they lived and evolution; they have dark skin
because they are cursed. God cursed them for a reason. If god cursed
them, treating them as equals would be going against god’s will. It
is really easy to justify treating people differently if they are
cursed by god and will never be as good as you no matter what they do
because of some predetermined status.
Once you have this
view, it is easy to lower the outside group’s standing and
acceptable level of treatment. Again, there are varying levels of
racism at play in rural Christian white America. I know people who
are ardent racists. I know a lot more whose racism is much more
subtle but nonetheless racist. It wouldn’t take sodium pentothal to
get most of these people to admit they believe they are fundamentally
better and superior to minorities. They are white supremacists who
dress up in white dress shirts, ties and gingham dresses. They carry
a bible and tell you, “everyone’s a child of god” but forget to
mention that some of god’s children are more favored than others
and skin tone is the criterion by which we know who is and isn’t at
the top of god’s list of most favored children.
For us
“coastal elites” who understand evolution, genetics and science,
nothing we say to those in flyover country is going to be listened to
because not only are we fighting against an anti-education belief
system, we are arguing against god. You aren’t winning a battle of
beliefs with these people if you are on one side of the argument and
god is on the other. No degree of understanding this is going to
suddenly make them less racist, more open to reason and facts.
Telling “urban elites” they need to understand rural Americans
isn’t going to lead to a damn thing because it misses the causes of
the problem.
Because rural Christian
white Americans will not listen to educated arguments, supported by
facts that go against their fundamentalist belief systems from
“outsiders,” any change must come from within. Internal change in
these systems does happen, but it happens infrequently and always
lags far behind reality. This is why they fear change so much. They
aren’t used to it. Of course, it really doesn’t matter whether
they like it or not, it, like evolution and climate change even
though they don’t believe it, it is going to happen whether they
believe in it or not.
Another major problem
with closed-off fundamentalist belief systems is they are very
susceptible to propaganda. All belief systems are to some extent, but
fundamentalist systems even more so because there are no checks and
balances. If bad information gets in, it doesn’t get out and
because there are no internal mechanisms to guard against it, it
usually ends up very damaging to the whole. A closed-off belief
system is like spinal fluid—it is great as long as nothing
infectious gets into it. If bacteria gets into your spinal fluid, it
causes unbelievable damage because there are no white blood cells to
fend off invaders and protect the system. Without the protective
services of white blood cells in the spinal column, infection spreads
like wildfire and does significant damage in a short period of time.
Once inside the closed-off spinal system, bacteria are free to
destroy whatever they want.
The same is true with
closed-off belief systems. Without built-in protective functions like
critical analysis, self-reflection, openness to counter-evidence, and
willingness to re-evaluate any and all beliefs, bad information in a
closed-off system ends up doing massive damage in a short period of
time. What has happened to too many fundamentalist belief systems is
damaging information has been allowed in from people who have been
granted “expert status.” If someone is allowed into a closed-off
system and their information is deemed acceptable, anything they say
will be readily accepted and become gospel.
Rural Christian white
Americans have let anti-intellectual, anti-science, bigoted racists
like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, the Stepford wives
of Fox, and every evangelical preacher on television into their
systems because these people tell them what they want to hear and
because they sell themselves as being like them. The truth is none of
these people give a rat’s ass about rural Christian white Americans
except how they can exploit them for attention and money. None of
them have anything in common with the people who have let them into
their belief systems with the exception that they are white and they
speak the language of white superiority.
Gays being allowed to
marry are a threat. Blacks protesting the killing of their unarmed
friends and family are a threat. Hispanics doing the cheap labor on
their farms are somehow viewed a threat. The black president is a
threat. Muslims are a threat. The Chinese are a threat. Women wanting
to be autonomous are a threat. The college educated are a threat.
Godless scientists are a threat. Everyone who isn’t just like them
has been sold to them as a threat and they’ve bought it hook, line
and grifting sinker. Since there are no self-regulating mechanisms in
their belief systems, these threats only grow over time. Since facts
and reality don’t matter, nothing you say to them will alter their
beliefs.
"President Obama was born in Kenya, is a secret member
of the Muslim Brotherhood who hates white Americans and is going to
take away their guns." I feel ridiculous even writing this, it
is so absurd, but it is gospel across large swaths of rural America.
Are rural Christian white Americans scared? Damn right they are. Are
their fears rational and justified? Hell no. The problem isn’t
understanding their fears. The problem is how to assuage fears based
on lies in closed-off fundamentalist belief systems that don’t have
the necessary tools for properly evaluating the fears.
I don’t have a good
answer to this question. When a child has an irrational fear, you can
deal with it because they trust you and are open to possibilities.
When someone doesn’t trust you and isn’t open to anything not
already accepted as true in their belief system, there really isn’t
much, if anything, you can do. This is why I think the idea that
"Democrats have to understand and find common ground with rural
America," is misguided and a complete waste of time. When a
2,700-year-old book that was written by uneducated, pre-scientific
people, subject to translation innumerable times, and edited with
political and economic pressures from popes and kings, is given
higher intellectual authority than facts arrived at from a rigorous,
self-critical, constantly re-evaluating system that can and does
correct mistakes, no amount of understanding, respect or evidence is
going to change their minds and assuage their fears.
Do you know what does
change the beliefs of fundamentalists, sometimes? When something
becomes personal. Many a fundamentalist has changed his mind about
the LGBT community once his loved ones started coming out of the
closet. Many have not. But those who did, did so because their
personal experience came into direct conflict with what they
believe.
My father is a good
example of this. For years I had long, heated discussions with him
about gay rights. Being the good religious fundamentalist he is, he
could not even entertain the possibility he was wrong. The church
said it was wrong, so therefore it was wrong. No questions asked. No
analysis needed. This changed when one of his adored stepchildren
came out of the closet. He didn’t do a complete 180. He has a view
that tries to accept gay rights while at the same time viewing being
gay as a mortal sin because his need to have his belief system be
right outweighs everything else.
This isn’t uncommon.
Deeply held beliefs are usually only altered, replaced under
catastrophic circumstances that are personal. This belief system
alteration works both ways. I know diehard, open-minded progressives
who became ardent fundamentalists due to a traumatic event in their
lives. A good example of this is the comedian Dennis Miller. I’ve
seen Miller in concert four different times during the 1990s. His
humor was complex, riddled with references and leaned pretty left on
almost all issues. Then 9/11 happened. For whatever reasons, the
trauma of 9/11 caused a seismic shift in Miller’s belief system.
Now he is a mainstay on conservative talk radio. His humor was
replaced with anger and frustration. 9/11 changed his belief system
because it was a catastrophic event that was personal to him.
The catastrophe of the
Great Depression along with FDR's progressive remedies helped create
a generation of Democrats out of previously diehard Republicans.
People who had up until that point believed only the free market
could help the economy, not the government, changed their minds when
the brutal reality of the Great Depression affected them directly and
personally.
I thought the financial
crisis in 2008 would have a similar, though lesser impact on many
Republicans. It didn’t. The systems that were put in place after
the Great Recession to deal with economic crises, the quick, smart
response by Congress and the administration helped turn what could
have been a catastrophic event into merely a really bad one. People
suffered, but they didn’t suffer enough to become open to
questioning their deeply held beliefs. Because this questioning
didn’t take place, the Great Recession didn’t lead to any
meaningful political shifts away from poorly regulated markets,
supply side economics or how to respond to a financial crisis. This
is why, even though rural Christian white Americans were hit hard by
the Great Recession, they not only didn’t blame the political party
they’ve aligned themselves with for years, they rewarded them two
years later by voting them into a record number of state legislatures
and taking over the U.S. House.
Of course, it didn’t
help matters that there were scapegoats available toward whom they
could direct their fears, anger and white supremacy. A significant
number of rural Americans believe President Obama was in charge when
the financial crisis started. An even higher number believe the
mortgage crisis was the result of the government forcing banks to
give loans to unqualified minorities. It doesn’t matter how untrue
both of these things are, they are gospel in rural America. Why
reevaluate your beliefs and voting patterns when scapegoats are
available?
How do you make climate
change personal to someone who believes only god can alter the
weather? How do you make racial equality personal to someone who
believes whites are naturally superior to non-whites? How do you make
gender equality personal to someone who believes women are supposed
to be subservient to men by god’s command? How do you get someone
to view minorities as not threatening to people who don’t live
around minorities and have never interacted with them? How
do you make personal the fact massive tax cuts and cutting back
government hurts their economic situation when they’ve voted for
such policies for decades? I don’t think you can without some
catastrophic events. And maybe not even then. The Civil War was
pretty damn catastrophic, yet a large swath of the South believed—and
still believes—they were right and had the moral high ground. They
were/are also mostly Christian fundamentalists who believe they are
superior because of the color of their skin and the religion they
profess to follow. There is a pattern here for anyone willing to
connect the dots.
“Rural white America
needs to be better understood,” is not one of the dots. “Rural
white America needs to be better understood,” is a dodge, meant to
avoid the real problems because talking about the real problems is
viewed as too upsetting, too mean, too arrogant, too elite, too
snobbish. Pointing out that Aunt Bea’s views of Mexicans, blacks
and gays is bigoted isn’t the thing one does in polite society. Too
bad more people don’t think the same about Aunt Bea's views. It’s
the classic, “You’re a racist for calling me a racist,” ploy.
I do think rational
arguments are needed, even if they go mostly ignored and ridiculed. I
believe in treating people with the respect they’ve earned, but the
key point here is “earned.” I’ll gladly sit down with Aunt Bea
and have a nice, polite conversation about her beliefs about "the
gays, the blacks and the illegals," and I'll do so without
calling her a bigot and a racist. But this doesn’t mean she isn’t
a bigot and a racist, and if I’m asked to describe her beliefs
these are the only words that honestly fit. Just because the media,
pundits on all sides and some Democratic leaders don’t want to call
the actions of many rural white Christian Americans racist and
bigoted doesn’t make them not so.
Avoiding the obvious
only prolongs getting the necessary treatment. America has always had
a race problem. The country was built on racism and bigotry. This
didn’t miraculously go away in 1964 with the passage of the Civil
Rights Act. It didn’t go away with the election of Barack Obama. If
anything, these events pulled back the curtain exposing the dark,
racist underbelly of America that white America likes to pretend
doesn’t exist because we are the reason it exists. From the white
nationalists to the white suburban soccer moms who voted for Donald
Trump, to the far-left progressives who didn’t vote at all, racism
exists and has once again been legitimized and normalized by white
America.
Here are the honest
truths that rural Christian white Americans don’t want to accept;
until they accept these truths, nothing is going to change:
Their economic
situation is largely the result of voting for supply-side economic
policies that have been the largest redistribution of wealth from
the bottom/middle to the top in U.S. history.
Immigrants haven’t
taken their jobs. If all immigrants, legal or otherwise, were
removed from the U.S., our economy would come to a screeching halt
and food prices would soar.
Immigrants are not
responsible for companies moving their plants overseas. The almost
exclusively white business owners are responsible, because they care
more about their shareholders (who are also mostly white) than about
American workers.
No one is coming
for their guns. All that has been proposed during the entire Obama
administration is having better background checks.
Gay people getting
married is not a threat to their freedom to believe in whatever
white god they want to. No one is going to make their church marry
gays, have a gay pastor or accept gays for membership.
Women having
access to birth control doesn’t affect their lives either,
especially women they complain about being teenage single mothers.
Blacks are not
“lazy moochers living off their hard-earned tax dollars” any
more than many of their fellow rural neighbors. People in need are
people in need. People who can’t find jobs because of their
circumstances, a changing economy or outsourcing overseas belong to
all races.
They get a
tremendous amount of help from the government they complain does
nothing for them. From the roads and utility grids they use to farm
subsidies, crop insurance and commodities protections, they benefit
greatly from government assistance. The Farm Bill is one of the
largest financial expenditures by the U.S. government. Without
government assistance, their lives would be considerably worse.
They get the
largest share of Food Stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social
Security.
They complain
about globalization, yet line up like everyone else to get the
latest Apple products. They have no problem buying foreign-made
guns, scopes and hunting equipment. They don’t think twice about
driving trucks whose engines were made in Canada, tires made in
Japan, radios made in Korea, and computer parts made in Malaysia.
They use illicit
drugs as much as any other group. But when other people do it is a
“moral failing” and they should be severely punished, legally.
When they do it, it is a “health crisis” that needs sympathy and
attention.
When jobs dry up
for whatever reason, they refuse to relocate but lecture the poor in
places like Flint for staying in failing towns.
They are quick to
judge minorities for being “welfare moochers,” but don’t think
twice about cashing their welfare checks every month.
They complain
about coastal liberals, but taxes from California and New York cover
their farm subsidies, help maintain their highways and keep the
hospitals in their sparsely populated rural areas open for business.
They complain
about “the little man being run out of business,” and then turn
around and shop at big-box stores.
They make sure
outsiders are not welcome, deny businesses permits to build, then
complain about businesses, plants opening up in less rural areas.
Government has not
done enough to help them in many cases, but their local and state
governments are almost completely Republican and so are their
representatives and senators. Instead of holding them accountable,
they vote them into office over and over and over again.
All the economic
policies and ideas that could help rural America belong to the
Democratic Party: raising the minimum wage, strengthening unions,
spending on infrastructure, renewable energy growth, slowing down
the damage done by climate change, and healthcare reform. All of
these and more would really help a lot of rural white Americans.
What I understand is
that rural Christian white Americans are entrenched in fundamentalist
belief systems; don’t trust people outside their tribe; have been
force-fed a diet of misinformation and lies for decades; are
unwilling to understand their own situations; and truly believe
whites are superior to all races. No amount of understanding is going
to change these things or what they believe. No amount of niceties
will get them to be introspective. No economic policy put forth by
someone outside their tribe is going to be listened to no matter how
beneficial it would be for them. I understand rural Christian white
America all too well. I understand their fears are based on myths and
lies. I understand they feel left behind by a world they don’t
understand and don’t really care to. They are willing to vote
against their own interests if they can be convinced it will make
sure minorities are harmed more. Their Christian beliefs and morals
are only extended to fellow white Christians. They are the problem
with progress and always will be, because their belief systems are
constructed against it.
The problem isn’t a
lack of understanding by coastal elites. The problem is a lack of
understanding of why rural Christian white America believes, votes,
behaves the ways it does by rural Christian white America.