Comments on: Downsized, Downtrodden and Down-Home:The Great Midwest http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/03/09/downsized-downtrodden-and-down-homethe-great-midwest/ Giving you the sharpest knife possible to cut through the mainstream media fog. Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:20:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Metromix http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/03/09/downsized-downtrodden-and-down-homethe-great-midwest/#comment-7663 Metromix Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:11:29 +0000 http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/03/09/downsized-downtrodden-and-down-homethe-great-midwest/#comment-7663 I would like to say that there is a relatively decent size LGBT population in the midwest. Additionally, I have enclosed a link with pictures from the Pride Parade in St. Louis. Enjoy! http://stlouis.metromix.com/events/photogallery/photo-gallery-pride-fest/482575/content I would like to say that there is a relatively decent size LGBT population in the midwest. Additionally, I have enclosed a link with pictures from the Pride Parade in St. Louis. Enjoy!

http://stlouis.metromix.com/ev.....75/content

]]> By: Mellenblog » Mellencamp Revisits “Small Town” On New Album http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/03/09/downsized-downtrodden-and-down-homethe-great-midwest/#comment-5033 Mellenblog » Mellencamp Revisits “Small Town” On New Album Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:26:52 +0000 http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/03/09/downsized-downtrodden-and-down-homethe-great-midwest/#comment-5033 [...] In my first installment for the website, I wrote about some of my experiences and observations. But, also focused on Mellencamp’s role in Farm Aid, and how the “Small Town” has become just another “Ghost Town Along the Highway.” Read it here - Downsized, Downtrodden, and Down-Home: The Great Midwest [...] [...] In my first installment for the website, I wrote about some of my experiences and observations. But, also focused on Mellencamp’s role in Farm Aid, and how the “Small Town” has become just another “Ghost Town Along the Highway.” Read it here - Downsized, Downtrodden, and Down-Home: The Great Midwest [...]

]]> By: jasontoon http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/03/09/downsized-downtrodden-and-down-homethe-great-midwest/#comment-4787 jasontoon Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:21:41 +0000 http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/03/09/downsized-downtrodden-and-down-homethe-great-midwest/#comment-4787 So, do comments ever actually appear on this blog...? It's been hours since I posted and still don't see anything... So, do comments ever actually appear on this blog…? It’s been hours since I posted and still don’t see anything…

]]> By: jasontoon http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/03/09/downsized-downtrodden-and-down-homethe-great-midwest/#comment-4786 jasontoon Tue, 13 Mar 2007 14:51:50 +0000 http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/03/09/downsized-downtrodden-and-down-homethe-great-midwest/#comment-4786 While I'm waiting for my first comment to appear, I'd like to add that an exmaination of where Clinton and Obama come from could've been an interesting springboard for a discussion of the Midwest's traditions of progressivism, especially in its cities. It could've been an opportunity to correct some of the stereotypes of the Midwest, and to look at ways to reclaim this progressive tradition and reconnect it to the politics of coastal liberals. But this opportunity remains a lost one in such incapable, insight-free hands as Masciotra's. While I’m waiting for my first comment to appear, I’d like to add that an exmaination of where Clinton and Obama come from could’ve been an interesting springboard for a discussion of the Midwest’s traditions of progressivism, especially in its cities. It could’ve been an opportunity to correct some of the stereotypes of the Midwest, and to look at ways to reclaim this progressive tradition and reconnect it to the politics of coastal liberals. But this opportunity remains a lost one in such incapable, insight-free hands as Masciotra’s.

]]> By: jasontoon http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/03/09/downsized-downtrodden-and-down-homethe-great-midwest/#comment-4785 jasontoon Tue, 13 Mar 2007 14:13:58 +0000 http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/03/09/downsized-downtrodden-and-down-homethe-great-midwest/#comment-4785 I'm not surprised that the author of this grossly uninformed mass of generalities is a college student. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised if he weren't a particularly successful college student. I'd give this piece a C-minus at best. First, he starts from a ridiculously simplistic, wrongheaded idea: that Midwesternness and urbanness are mutually exclusive, and that any city with strong urban characteristics (Chicago) must, de facto, not really be "Midwestern." Never mind that the majority of Midwesterners do live in cities and suburbs, and that virtually every Midwestern city exhibits roughly the same political and social patterns as Chicago, albeit on a smaller scale. David Masciotra's mind is made up, and he'll be damned if he lets facts interfere. Then he tries to support this untenable thesis with some truly amazing feats of rhetorical ignorance. "Chicago’s large ethnic and gay populations would be feared and met with hostility if transplanted to Omaha or Kansas City" My, what a breathtakingly ill-informed statement. You do realize that Omaha and Kansas City aren't small towns in the middle of cornfields, right? Guess what: large numbers of gay people and "ethnic" people do live in other Midwestern cities besides Chicago. If you'd actually spent time in any of them - or looked at some basic demographic statistics - you'd know that. "liberal politics, artistic communities, and elite universities" Let me share a secret with you: all three of these things exist in other Midwestern cities, too. It's truly shocking to me that you need to be told this. Do you realize that Columbus, Ohio has one of the highest concentrations of gay people in the country? Did you know that 30,000 Bosnian Muslims now live in my city, St. Louis, with very little ethnic tension? Have you ever heard of the Iowa Writers' Workshop? Washington University in St. Louis? Saddle Creek Records? Do you really know anything about the Midwest that you didn't learn from John Cougar lyrics? Sorry, a two-hour drive down an Indiana highway doesn't make you an expert on Midwestern life. "because the Midwest tends to be a racist place" Compared to what? That paradise of racial harmony in Southern California? The rock-throwing goons in South Boston? The Bensonhurst welcoming committee? The South (ha ha)? This banality is vaguely accurate only in the sense that any part of the country could "tend to be a racist place," at certain times and under certain conditions - in other words, it belongs in the "goes without saying" category. But if Masciotra went without saying it, he'd be missing a chance to show us how much better he is than "the people who inhabit these desolate villages". The Midwest isn't perfect. No region is. But we're not helped by throwing around the same tired stereotypes dressed up in pompous quasi-academic language. This isn't 1955. The Midwest is not a hinterland of all-white peasants. Most of us even got 'lectrical lights now! Please, P+P, no more "dispatches" from this superficial, lazy, juvenile commentator, at least not until he grows up. And I'm not speaking chronologically. I’m not surprised that the author of this grossly uninformed mass of generalities is a college student. Furthermore, I wouldn’t be surprised if he weren’t a particularly successful college student. I’d give this piece a C-minus at best.

First, he starts from a ridiculously simplistic, wrongheaded idea: that Midwesternness and urbanness are mutually exclusive, and that any city with strong urban characteristics (Chicago) must, de facto, not really be “Midwestern.” Never mind that the majority of Midwesterners do live in cities and suburbs, and that virtually every Midwestern city exhibits roughly the same political and social patterns as Chicago, albeit on a smaller scale. David Masciotra’s mind is made up, and he’ll be damned if he lets facts interfere.

Then he tries to support this untenable thesis with some truly amazing feats of rhetorical ignorance.

“Chicago’s large ethnic and gay populations would be feared and met with hostility if transplanted to Omaha or Kansas City”

My, what a breathtakingly ill-informed statement. You do realize that Omaha and Kansas City aren’t small towns in the middle of cornfields, right? Guess what: large numbers of gay people and “ethnic” people do live in other Midwestern cities besides Chicago. If you’d actually spent time in any of them - or looked at some basic demographic statistics - you’d know that.

“liberal politics, artistic communities, and elite universities”

Let me share a secret with you: all three of these things exist in other Midwestern cities, too. It’s truly shocking to me that you need to be told this. Do you realize that Columbus, Ohio has one of the highest concentrations of gay people in the country? Did you know that 30,000 Bosnian Muslims now live in my city, St. Louis, with very little ethnic tension? Have you ever heard of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop? Washington University in St. Louis? Saddle Creek Records? Do you really know anything about the Midwest that you didn’t learn from John Cougar lyrics? Sorry, a two-hour drive down an Indiana highway doesn’t make you an expert on Midwestern life.

“because the Midwest tends to be a racist place”

Compared to what? That paradise of racial harmony in Southern California? The rock-throwing goons in South Boston? The Bensonhurst welcoming committee? The South (ha ha)? This banality is vaguely accurate only in the sense that any part of the country could “tend to be a racist place,” at certain times and under certain conditions - in other words, it belongs in the “goes without saying” category. But if Masciotra went without saying it, he’d be missing a chance to show us how much better he is than “the people who inhabit these desolate villages”.

The Midwest isn’t perfect. No region is. But we’re not helped by throwing around the same tired stereotypes dressed up in pompous quasi-academic language. This isn’t 1955. The Midwest is not a hinterland of all-white peasants. Most of us even got ‘lectrical lights now! Please, P+P, no more “dispatches” from this superficial, lazy, juvenile commentator, at least not until he grows up. And I’m not speaking chronologically.

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