jtexas
Fleet Admiral
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2003
- Messages
- 8,646
Political commentary:<br /><br />My dad grew up in central Louisiana, the son of a fourth-generation sharecropper. "Sharecroppers" are what the slaves became after they were freed, and a lot of poor (read "non-property owning") whites fell into the same occuption. You do the work, raise the crop (in this case cotton) and get a shack to live in including a plot to grow your own produce, hunting & fishing rights, and a fraction of the proceeds, the rest going to the property owner.<br /><br />It was important for the property owners to keep the sharecroppers on the farm...without a lot of mechanization they couldn't have made much profit otherwise. So it was important to perpetuate the belief that sharecropping was really all they were suited for. Keep 'em from aspiring to anything more. <br /><br />The political machine that facilitated this was the Democratic party, most notably Huey P. Long. Instituted a lot of social reforms that really did benefit the people of the state (aside from the graft and corruption): highways, bridges, school lunches, free schoolbooks, but also, social welfare programs designed to make it possible for sharecroppers to stay on the farm. After all, if their families were starving, they would have to look elsewhere for work.<br /><br />So, they had a sort of "social contract" whereby the Party would send busses to pick up poor voters, pay 'em each a few bucks & show 'em how to vote a straight ticket (or mark the ballet for 'em). In return, the Party would continue to provide all those wonderful benefits...not so much as to lift 'em out of the dirt, but enough to keep 'em from becoming too dissatisfied. This is what I think of as the "Southern Democrat."<br /><br /><br />That was just the next logical progression of the "Plantation Mentality," whereby the owners up in the Big House were responsible for the wellbeing of the workers, same as the livestock and tractors. <br /><br />I don't think Louisiana has sharecropping anymore, but they do still have vestiges of that "Plantation Mentality." So now, you have thousands of people saying "we had a deal, we have a contract, you are responsible for us, you owe us a rescue." I think, to rescue them is the right thing to do not because we owe it to them but because it's just the right thing to do. I don't think many here will disagree with that.<br /><br />I heard the Mayor of New Orleans making a desparate plea for help on the radio "...I need troops, I need 500 busses..." a very desparate situation, I feel sorry for the man, he is responsible for a lot of souls. Now, politics have changed. This mayor isn't part of the big, rich, white Democratic machine of the 30's & 40's. and 50's maybe (somebody help me out here).<br /><br />Think about it, why didn't he arrange for 500 buses when he ordered the evacuation of his city? I have no doubt the people of America would have responded just like we are responding today, only it wouldn't have been too late. I think it has something to with the Plantation Mentality.
