U.S. Creates Failed State
How else can you describe a mess like this plus a civil war and 100 Iraqi citizens a day being turned into red stuff on the street?
IRAQ: Unemployment and violence increase poverty
BAGHDAD, 17 October (IRIN) – Mounir Zeid, 32, says he likes to remember the good old days before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Then, most people were employed and his income was enough to afford holidays abroad. Today, however, poverty has struck and he finds himself sharing one room with his four brothers.
“We were having a good life in Iraq [before 2003] – good food, nice clothes and we enjoyed travelling – but everything went out with the occupation,” Zeid said.
“I and my parents lost our jobs in the government so we started to use our savings. Today, we are living in a ghetto and sometimes even breakfast has to be forgotten because there is no money for that,” he added.
Zeid is typical of millions of Iraqis struggling to cope with rising levels of poverty, largely as a result of unemployment.
“Every day you can see families searching for houses in the ghetto areas because they have lost what they had and are joining the new Iraq truth,” Zeid said.
[.....]
In Iraq, despite the government working hard to fight poverty in the country, the situation has not changed. Indeed, the opposite is happening. Unemployment is rising and more and more children are leaving school to work and supplement their parents’ income.
“Nearly 5.6 millions Iraqis are living below the poverty line, according to our most recent studies. At least 40 percent of this number is living in absolute and desperate deteriorated conditions,” said Sinan Youssef, a senior official in the strategy department of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, adding that this level of poverty is a 35 percent increase over the level before 2003.
– and as of last month Americans just didn’t feel any safer.
It’s interesting to watch as the Bush Administration is beginning to make noise about a pull-out, with a rumoured timetable hitting the press just before the mid-terms, that would put a pull-out just prior to the next Presidential election.
What a crock – domestic election politics that are affecting the very lives of millions of people on the other side of the world.
I describe it as a parody:
“Last year I went to Iraq. Before Team America showed up, it was a happy place. They had flowery meadows and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate, where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles.”
Compared to:
“We were having a good life in Iraq [before 2003] – good food, nice clothes and we enjoyed travelling – but everything went out with the occupation,†Zeid said.
“I and my parents lost our jobs in the government so we started to use our savings. Today, we are living in a ghetto and sometimes even breakfast has to be forgotten because there is no money for that,†he added.”
Somehow, pitying out-of-work and impoverished Ba’athists is a stretch, even for you SL.
Just a follow-up and counterpoint to the IRIN news (heh) release you posted above.
“Why is there peace and prosperity in the north, and why doesn’t anyone talk about it? Actually, the economy is booming in the Shia Arab south as well, but there is also some violence down there. But nearly all the violence you hear about in Iraq is in Sunni Arab areas of central Iraq. Meanwhile, the north is so peaceful that Western journalists, and just about anyone else, can move about freely, without fear of attack. How can this be? Well, for one thing, the Kurds have tight controls on their borders, and any Arabs entering are checked carefully. Arab Iraqis are welcome to visit, and many do, for vacations from the violence in the south. When asked, Kurds attribute their peaceful neighborhood to the fact that Kurds are not Arabs. But this is not the main reason, for the Kurds have, in the past, been as factious and violent as the Iraqi Arabs are now. But during the 1990s, when the U.S. and Britain agreed to keep Saddam’s forces out of the north (to prevent another large scale massacre of Kurds), the Kurds sorted out their differences and learned the benefits of cooperation and law and order. In effect, the Kurds had a ten year head start on the rest of Iraq, in the “how to create peace and democracy” department. The Iraqi Arabs, Sunni and Shia, who come north on business, or for a vacation, note this. The Arabs believe they are superior to the Kurds (”a bunch of hillbillies,” to most Arabs), and find it irritating that the Kurds have made things work, while down south, especially in central Iraq, things are still a mess. Given another seven years, the Iraqi Arabs will probably catch up. But this is not a popular solution to the “Iraq problem,” and no career-conscious journalist is going to talk about it.”
SL likes to dwell on the negative….
Welcome back RJ, we missed ya. Good try on Kurdistan reference, not good enough though. Kurdistan and Iraq share a boundary which many Kurds don’t necessarily agree with and it has been autonomous for years, and years, you’ll have to do considerably better than that.
It’s not called dwelling on the negative Jeff, it’s called discussing reality – something you seem to have a lot of difficulity with.
Re-check your geography SL. Kurdistan officially does not exist, though there are Kurdish regions in Iraq (and Turkey, Syria, and Iran), which is what this article refers to. And you’ll note that the Shia areas are also booming as in:
“Actually, the economy is booming in the Shia Arab south as well, but there is also some violence down there.”
Or are the Kurdish Iraqis and Shia Iraqis not Iraqi enough for you? They seemed to be Iraqi enough for Saddam Hussein to kill them for years as an “internal matter.”
Like it or not SL, you’re utterly wrong on this one.
Would it have gone over better if I had refered to it as “that autonomous region of Iraq governed by the Kurds that Iraq proper has had no control over for years and years and years”?
… a rose by any other name RJ.
I do not dispute that there are some areas where people are safe, safe now, and safe before The Decider stuck his spoon in the pot – do you consider that the norm?
Do you think that Iraq is not engaged in a civil war, or on the brink of one, dependent upon your defination?
Do you dispute that the country is in a mess?
Do you dispute the reports of daily civilian dead?
Do you dispute the lawlessness?
3.5 years later do you consider Iraq a success?
US CREATES failed state? Yep, life was swell under Saddam.
Holy cow, Shlemazl, are you Bushophiles still trotting out THAT lame old embarassment of a non-sequitur?
Rhetorical question, of course, I see that you are.
Saddam was a vicious, murderous thug who ran an oppressive dictatorship. There. Got it? Clear? Any questions?
The US invasion replaced his regime with a lame duck, propped up Vichy-style government that cannot sustain itself OR national order, made Iraq a Mecca for angry Islamists who are now flooding into the country (Saddam’s oppression was essentially secular), destroyed much of the country’s economy and infrastructure, denationalized state assets and provided them to Coalition corporate partners, and radicalized a new generation who are now as angry at the US as the previous generation was at Saddam. Almost all of this was predicted by Administration and military advisors prior to the invasion, and ignored by Bush cabal.
Was it a net gain, in the long run? Neither you nor I know at this point. I suspect not: the most likely outcome at this point would seem to be two Islamist states and a Kurdish state after a lengthy period of bloodshed. It seems to me that a single, united Iraq under sanctions, US and British overflight surveillance and interdictions, and a US inspection regime, was a safer situation for both the US and Israel.
What does one have to do with the other shlemazl? Instead of tossing an old and empty one-line chunk of rhetoric at me why don’t you take a stab at answering the questions I posed to RJ?
– and after you do that you can even ask me what I think of the Hussein regieme and how it worked, I promise answers and opinions, they won’t jive with your “life was great” idea, but I do promise to provide them.
No, they won’t ask you that SL and Balb, because it may require to them to step out of their comfortable ideological box, and we all know that if you leave your neighborhood, you may see things that may offend you, or make you rethink your political views.
You have more faith in the power of reality to influence an ideologue than I do, Throbbin’.
Recently our good friend Canadian Sentinel posted a piece on the rise of antisemitism in Germany which prompted another of his thoughtful and well reasoned essays on “leftists” and “Islamofascists”…the usual, ummm, stuff.
Problem is, the folks in the article he quoted unequivocally and repeatedly attributed the escalation in violence and antisemitism to “extreme right wingers” – a fact curiously and entirely omitted from Sentinel’s post.
Psychosis, willful ideological blindness, sheer manipulative dishonesty, or all three…doesn’t really matter. They’re spinning further from reality all the time….
Bush’s greatest failure, IMHO, was the virtual abandonment of the Afghan campaign long before its stated goals were achieved. The debacle in Iraq is one component of a failed Middle East policy that began with the justifiable overthrow of the Taliban. In the immediate wake of 9/11, the US had nearly the entire world on it side. As pacifistic as I am, I even supported the invasion, if not the bombing and methodology of it.
When the Bush team took its eyes off the prize — a shining beacon of democracy in Afghanistan — and chose to re-fight GHWB’s war with Saddam, the wheels fell off. International support for US action dried up. Funds earmarked for regime-building in Afghanistan were diverted to the Iraq fiasco.
It is not just one failed state that has been created by US arrogance. Afghanistan is a shambles. Warlards reign and illegal poppy production is at an all-time high. Personal security is tenuous, at best, even in supposedly Taliban-free zones. Canadians are losing our sons and daughters in a war we cannot possibly win.
The west had a chance to create that shining beacon but it could not be done without the manpower and money of our hyper-power neighbour. There is only one country in the world with the military and economic strength to create that beacon and that country simply declared victory and walked away from a job half-done.
Now that public opinion in the US has turned against the Iraq quagmire, they’re looking for an exit strategy. The exit strategy they used in Afghanistan was to leave the rebuilding of the bombed out nation to their allies. The magnitude of their failure in Iraq has meant that they have few allies in the world and none who would even consider picking up where the US left off.
Bush made a mess of things. He’ll struggle along as a lame duck president for a couple years and then his mess will land in the laps of new administration. Hundreds more Americans will die needlessly. Thousands more Iraqis will die needlessly. Right-wing ideologues will blame Bush’s failures on weak-kneed Democrats and diplomatically-inclined nations like France.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are NOT going well for the west. Those who point at miniscule advances and try to say things are going swimmingly are, at best, dupes; at worst, they are advancing a failed ideology that threatens to escalate into a real clash of civilizations from which none of us will emerge unscathed.
James Robert
Holy cow, Shlemazl, are you Bushophiles still trotting out THAT lame old embarassment of a non-sequitur?
Of course they are. They’ve been doing it for over three years. It was particularly irritating when it was being used to deflect criticism of all the missteps taken shortly after the invasion (dismissing the Iraqi army, de-Ba’athification, failure to prevent widespread looting, handing out sinecures to Republican loyalists, no-bid contracts to war-profiteers and other carpet-baggers, complete ignorance of potential problems among the various sectaries, irrational faith in free-market principles, etc. etc.). They’ve managed to shut down useful discussion for over three years with this simple-minded platitude.
As I said, it was irritating before. Now, it’s simply immoral.
Here’s something interesting from Think Progress:
At his press conference this morning, President Bush said we are “absolutely” winning in Iraq, but a government-funded nonpartisan agency — the U.S. Institute of Peace — has released “an unremittingly grim report” ruling out victory in Iraq. Here are three of agency’s predictions for the future of Iraq:
The report concludes that “avoidance of disaster and maintenance of some modicum of political stability in Iraq are more realistic goals” than the Bush administration’s expressed goal of “an Iraq that is peaceful, united, stable, democratic, and secure.”
The USIP is helping the Iraq Study Group with its report and this “latest study could foreshadow the tone of [former Secretary of State James] Baker’s upcoming report.”
By the numbers SL:
“Do you think that Iraq is not engaged in a civil war, or on the brink of one, dependent upon your defination?”
No, Iraq is not engaged in a civil war, or on the brink of one. Iraq has a problem with terrorists, criminals, and groups like the Mehdi Army, but this is far from a civil war. To get an idea of what a civil war would look like, look at Bosnia or Rwanda or Ethiopia in the early 1990s, then get back to me.
“Do you dispute that the country is in a mess?”
Yes. Absolutely. Is the country a paradise? No. Is the country a mess–definitely not. The country’s GDP has been climbing since 2003. It has a long way to go to reach its pre-Saddam high of $130 Billion, but it’s trending in the right direction.
“Do you dispute the reports of daily civilian dead?”
Do I dispute the Lancet study? I think that any person who is even remotely connected to reality would dispute it, especially after they acknowledged the timing of the release of the study for its political impact, let alone their revelations of their methodology.
Do I dispute the reports of daily civilian dead? Absolutely. I don’t necessarily disagree with the numbers but I would like to know about the classification–how many of those civilians are Iraqi security forces, how many are terrorists/criminals etc. vs. how many are civilians. I think the numbers would be interesting. Please feel free to post them if you have access to them.
“Do you dispute the lawlessness?”
Yes. Kurdish regions have little lawlessness. Shia areas have issues with corruption and terrorism, as well as infiltration from Iran whose national interests are served by keeping the pot stirred.
“3.5 years later do you consider Iraq a success?”
Yes. Iraq is moving in the right direction. It has had successes, though none that those blinded by left-wing thinking would ever admit.
By the way, why are you shilling for the out-of-work Ba’athists. You never did address that.
Balbulican, I’ve gotta correct you on at least one thing–that Saddam’s oppression was essentially secular. In the latter part of his reign, he was moving more and more towards jihadist/Islamist tendencies, up to and including the sponsorship of Islamic terrorists. Whether this was a matter of personal belief, or a cynical attempt to co-opt rising jihadist movements as part of Iraq’s foreign policies I can’t say, but the jihadist element was certainly a part of his dictatorship.
JimBobby, sorry to disagree, but there is a larger strategy at work here that you’re not seeing. Iraq was a necessary step in the War on Terror. Afghanistan is at best, a sideshow–a necessary battle, but a sideshow nonetheless. I say this as a matter of providing perspective, not to denigrate the sacrifices that our soldiers and those of other nations have made within Afghanistan. Afghanistan could never be the shining beacon of democracy that you espouse. Democratic, yes, but hardly at the centre of a logistics and recruitment network that fuels the jihadist core. Removing Afghanistan was necessary to start the pressure on Al Qaeda which had worldwide adherents. Iraq was a much more important target which had to be brought into the democratic sphere. It was a softer target, and given that things have gone better than I had hoped in Iraq, it was the best place to start inculcating democratic ideals into the Middle East.
In any event, ask Balbulican–he can probably explain my thinking on Iraq more succinctly than I could.
Just remember Balb, that I’ve been right in my prognostications so far.
No, Iraq is not engaged in a civil war, or on the brink of one.
Oh, darn. Had to stop reading there. Was there anything worth salvaging from the rest of RJ’s latest mess?
By the way, RJ…I see you’re stuggling with the concept of substantiation, in that you don’t provide any corroboration of the allegedly factual statements you make. Not a link the whole thing. Now…that’s not intelligence, is it?
Ah shit. And here I thought the ti unit had gone on an extended holiday. Things were actually getting back to normal there for a bit…..
*sigh*…Shut up, psycho.
Yeah RJ, you make an awful lot of claims there, but you need to back them up (I am only learning to do this myself).
What aspects of the civil wars in Bosnia, Rwanada, and other places are not present in Iraq to make you not see the Civil War there?
If you measure of wether or not Iraq is “a mess” is the GDP, then you come off as cold and uncaring, at least in my eyes.
Numbers of dead civilians are in the dozens per day, and you want to play semantics. Even if some of the people who died are not necessarily good people, they are still DEAD – where is this compassionate conservatism I vaguely recall hearing about?
Way to bring Iran into the sights – the fact still remains that Shia areas would not have a problem with corruption and terrorism is the U.S. had not invaded in the first place.
“Iraq was a necessary step in the War on Terror” – bullshit. To use the excuse that Iraq was the priority target to sow the seeds of democracy in the middle east reeks of arrogance and American imperialism. The only reason the U.S. is interested in the middle east is for their oil (or they would be in the Congo, Uzbekistan, and a few dozen other places) – pure and simple.
Who is to say the middle east needs to be democratic? Don’t get me wrong, I love democracy, but to force other parts of the world to adopt western democratic ways is stupid. Much like SL pointed out, this WOT bears a striking resemblance to the Inquisition in the dark (or is it middle?) ages – dark people need to be enlightened, and there is no better way to do this than through violence, right?
Saddam Hussein was an easy target – one that the American people could rally behind.
It’s like what’s his name said – beware the military/industrial complex. The Iraq quagmire is exactly the reason we have to be aware of, and reluctant towards, the military/industrial complex.
Afghanistan offered no real likelihood of ever becoming a beacon of democracy. You’ve confused it with Iraq. Iraq’s advantages were its relative secularism and modernity, factors once true of Iran (but no longer) and never true of Afghanistan. The only necessary aims in Afghanistan were to remove Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and prevent either from re-establishing a power base. Afghanistan will be just fine if it reverts to a feudal state with purely internal squabbles. With a long enough investment (10-20 years) it might aspire to be what the Kurds already were 10 years ago.
Afghanistan offered no real likelihood of ever becoming a beacon of democracy.
Based on what, exactly?
You’ve confused it with Iraq. Iraq’s advantages were its relative secularism and modernity, factors once true of Iran (but no longer)
You mean, Iran is less modern than it used to be? On what do you base that?
…and never true of Afghanistan…
Oh really?
The only necessary aims in Afghanistan were to remove Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and prevent either from re-establishing a power base. Afghanistan will be just fine if it reverts to a feudal state with purely internal squabbles. With a long enough investment (10-20 years) it might aspire to be what the Kurds already were 10 years ago.
Man, you are just a big ole racist, aren’t you?
You’ve basically said the same thing when it’s come to FN discussions here….when you suggested that they should accept the fact that they are a “conquered people.”
IrC…you’re a Nazi.
I do enjoy the ceaseless retroengineering of purpose to prove that everything is going exactly as planned, and today’s apparent disaster is just the precursor to tomorrow’s glorious success.
To briefly address the points raised by my good friend RJ:
Whether or not the situation in Iraq is a “civil war” isn’t really that important, but an increasing number of senior American and British officials seem to feel that Iraq is now in or approaching that state.
As an indicator of “success”, interestingly, RJ cites ONE improvement. That’s ONE. The increase in GDP. In other words, oil is flowing relatively unimpeded. Heh. The fact that coalition deaths are rising, civilian deaths are rising, the election has NOT yielded a national consensus, targets have been met for the takeover of security by Iraqi troops and police have been consistently pushed back (and the PM is now refusing to accept American-defined targets) – none of that matters. GDP is rising. Spoken like a True Believer in the Holy Market, RJ.
On the nature of Saddam’s regime…sorry, citing the famous sporadic meetings of lesser Iraqi bureaucrats with people “associated” with Al Qaeda doesn’t change the secular nature of Saddam’s reign. What Bin Laden and Hussein shared was a hatred of America and Saudi Arabia, not Islamist fervour.
As for the Grand Design; you are giving Mr. Bush et al way too much credit. The series of blunders that won them the battle will lose them them the war. I am both amused and admiring of the straight face with which you manage to utter the phrase “given that things have gone better than I had hoped in Iraq…”, and you get full points for both optimism and hubris. I THINK I understand your vision of what the Grand Design was supposed to accomplish, but I cannot see it happening at all. Time will tell, I suppose.
OK…. here we go
Some are terrorists, some are criminals, and some are insurgents, as a matter of fact the majority are Iraqi insurgents according to most actual data as opposed to political rhetoric – read that as people engaged in attempting to bring down the government, and drive the occupying forces that prop up that government, from their country.
Non-government Iraqi forces attempting to bring down the Iraqi government equals civil war.
Glad to know that a rising GDP is such a valuable indicator RJ, do you suppose that has anything at all to do with sanctions being lifted after the invasion – there is a fractured government, people are being killed in the streets on a daily/nightly basis, there is open warfare between rival groups, militias, the government, and the occupation forces, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, orphans and widows abound… but it’s not a mess because a few economic indicators are up.
Good thinking.
What about that 35% rise in poverty over the same period?
I didn’t bring up the Lancet Study, I brought up the numbers of dead on a daily basis as reported in the mainstream media
Civilian dead means just that “civilians”.
How affected by the invasion and occupation were the Kurdish areas RJ? They do not consider themselves part of Iraq and have not been part of the occupation.
The Iran thing is weak, very weak, remember those British folks placed along the border that said they saw no evidence of this?
It’s interesting to note that a state where in major cities people are afraid to leave their homes at night for fear of being kidnapped or shot is not considered to be in a state of lawlessness. Odd indeed that armed private militias roaming the streets of most cities are not considered a sign of lawlessness.
But the question was not “is Iraq moving in the right direction”, the question was “do you consider Iraq a success”?
I’m not shrilling for anyone RJ, that’s weaker than the Iran thing, and completely beneath you.
The primary functions of government:
[1] Peace
[2] Order
[3] Good government
My statement is that the United States has created a failed state, unfortunately for people who back this little American experiment a bunch of purple thumbed citizens does not a successful government make. If the government cannot get its’ act together, if the government cannot create and maintain general order and stability, then that government has failed – which the Iraqi government, the American government that currently props it up, have most certainly done.
Glad you’re back RJ, I’ve missed these long discussions with you – if ya could find Mike and get him back in gear as well it would be greatly appreciated.
If Afghanistan is a “sideshow” and it is impossible to create a functioning democracy there as RJ and Lrc contend, why are Canadians dying there?
I thought our mission was nation-building. I’m pretty sure the previous Canadian government and the rebranded Canada’s New Government have been telling Canadians that our soldiers are sacrificing their lives to build a new Afghanistan. If a democratic, stable Afghanistan is not an attainable goal, why don’t we pull out like we pulled out of that other deal with the unattainable goals, the Kyoto Accord?
Was it Afghanistan or Iraq that actively supported Al Qaeda and the terrorists who set off these wars with the 9/11 attack?
Was Al Qaeda headquartered in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Was the effort never intended to instal a functioning, stable government?
When the large coalition of nations went into Afghanistan with the backing of the UN, did Bush tell them that this was merely the first step in a far-reaching Middle East policy?
Did GWB lie to us when he sold the Afghan mission to the UN?
Why did the US declare the Afghanistan conflict a victory and leave the clean-up/nation-building to its allies when, in fact, the Taliban threat never ceased to exist?
The revisionism I’m seeing in these absurd explanations for the quagmire/fiasco/debacle that is the Iraq War is astonishing. The ever-shrinking minority of true believers espousing this nonsense is starting to be reminiscent of Comical Ali. That’s irony, I suppose.
James Robert
>Based on what, exactly?
Afghanistan has always been a loose federation of local rulers. That fact of history is at the heart of the arguments levelled by critics of the NATO involvement.
>You mean, Iran is less modern than it used to be? On what do you base that?
Prior to 1979, Iran was on a trajectory of increasing modernity and secularism. That was rolled back by the revolution, and it hasn’t fully regained the lost ground.
>Man, you are just a big ole racist, aren’t you?
There’s no element of racism involved, Wedge. My statements were purely political. I can see you’ve exhausted your limited capacity to reason.
>If Afghanistan is a “sideshow†and it is impossible to create a functioning democracy there as RJ and Lrc contend, why are Canadians dying there?
There are only two pragmatic externally imposed solutions to tyranny:
1) Kill the tyrants. Allow a new government to arise. Repeat as often as necessary until the new governors realize their survival is contingent upon leaving us alone and not over-brutalizing their own people. This is an undertaking of a few weeks to months for each instance of government.
2) Kill the tyrants, colonize the people, and replace their institutions with some more closely resembling our own. This is an undertaking of at least 2 to 4 generations.
We can also ignore tyrants who ignore us, disregard the welfare of the people under control of the tyrants, and let the nations evolve as they choose, but that is not an externally imposed solution.
Currently people attempting to follow course (2) in both Afghanistan and Iraq are (barely) in control. When the national attention span expires or a disinterested government is elected and the neo-Jacobins are deposed, we will abort the nation-building process prematurely.
In effect, post-colonial western nations are giving nation-building its first real shot. I expect failure, because post-colonial western nations are democratic and the plurality consists of people concerned chiefly with enjoyment of self. There is no collective majority resolve to carry through – whether it be borne from noble intentions or paternalism or parochialism or any other source – and our systems of government aren’t designed to override the people indefinitely.
Jim Bobby, why did you give up your hillbilly persona? I’m not asking for you to bring it back, understand. Just wondering. Frankly, I like this new persona, well-spoken and obviously intelligent, much much better than the cracker-guy. As a Southerner myself, the implications in your parody just set my teeth grinding. Somehow, it just seemed insulting and condescending.
I’m providing two links to articles that list things the US has done to re-build and improve Iraq. While some of the figures may be inflated and self-serving, I don’t think they are any more skewed than the negative picture that the media and others are trying to paint about the on-going work to rebuild in Iraq.
http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/accomplishments/cap.html
http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/updates/sep06/iraq_fs42_092506.pdf
I do not dispute that there are good initiatives Cait, or that there have been some accomplishments. But the fact remains that Iraq is an extremely dangerous place where hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been displaced, made homeless, orphaned, widowed, crippled, maimed, or are living in squallor, in a country where various armed militias roam the streets fighting with each other and the military that occupys their country.
This is by no defination a success.
Whooee! Cait sed —
“Jim Bobby, why did you give up your hillbilly persona? I’m not asking for you to bring it back, understand. Just wondering. Frankly, I like this new persona, well-spoken and obviously intelligent, much much better than the cracker-guy. As a Southerner myself, the implications in your parody just set my teeth grinding. Somehow, it just seemed insulting and condescending. ”
CaitieGal, I ain’t given it up altogether. My parody is intended t’ break the stereotype that all hicks is rednecks. In real life, I am a small town feller — a hick. Folks in my neck o’ the woods talk purty much the way JimBobby writes. I wrote me up an explanation over t’ my own little boog. That was mostly so’s sumbuddy else’s comments section wouldn’t get off topic with stuff ’bout JimBobby’s way o’ writin’.
My point is that rural Canajuns (hicks) can’t all be painted with the same brush. Not all urban dwellers are cosmopolitan world citizens who embrace multiculturalism and the gun registry and not all hicks are gun-toting neanderthals. The harshest criticism of JimBobby’s style has come from the far right. KatieGal from SDA seemed personally insulted that JimBobby could be a liberal minded rural Canadian. Numerous right wingers put JB on their blog rolls when they assumed he was among their ranks simply because of the dialect. JimBob got hisself a good laff over that.
JB / J.R.