When I moved here seven years ago, I kept hearing about how the local left was at the root of the community’s problems. Being more conservative, at least in the liberal Bay Area, I was all ears.
As it turned out, most of what I heard from the right were personal attacks, some of it pretty nasty: “He’s broke, so we’re not worried,” “She’s nutty” or “He’s with so and so” (gadzooks!) and so on; the only real issues I heard about were NH2020 and the anti-growth initiatives.
I’m sure there are two sides to every story. For example, I heard the Rood Center needed a “mediator” to help some of previous board members communicate with one another — pitiful for a small town. But now that I’ve lived here a while, I have a view of the left and the right from personal observations, not hearsay.
Nowadays it seems that the vitriol comes from the right, not the left — almost daily. The left has strong passions — to be sure — but I never hear the personal attacks that I do from the right. To me, at least, it weakens your arguments.
Examples:
•Former Supervisor Todd Juvinall vs. former Supervisor Peter Van Zant. (Not even close).
•Political activist Reinette Senum vs. activists Russ Steele, George Rebane and Barry Pruett. (Reinette is passionate, but she never personally attacks or belittles anyone).
•The Union publisher/editor Jeff Ackerman vs. Yubanet’s Pascale Fusshoeller. (Again, totally different styles).
•Staunch local Republican Central Committee members (more personal oriented, based on a “history” with someone) vs. Democratic Central Committee members (more affable and issue oriented).
So when a newcomer moves up here, it’s hard to understand what all the noise is about when it comes to the “local left.”
This is just my observation. But it comes from somebody who has been conservative fiscally and more liberal socially throughout their lives. It can be unsettling, causing you to question some basic assumptions about California.
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I’d go beyond that and guess that the bitterness and constipation coming from the right wingers actually drives away many younger families thinking of moving here (by several mechanisms: prospective movers looking at the local paper first, listening to local commentaries, following local policy practices, environmental actions, voting trends, etc), thereby deepening the lack of construction jobs etc that drive the illogical scapegoat-seeking drumbeat from their side. Self-perpetuating bitterness. Sad yet brilliantly efficient.
I have known more than a few young families that have told me they would love to live in the Sierra Nevada but could never live with a culture that is as conservative as ours. Some of them move to Truckee by the way, because it is seen as a younger peoples and more ‘liberal’ bastion (even perceived as more open than Nevada City although it may not be).
I’ve meet several folks during my trips to Ashland over the last 22 years who, when I told them where I was from, said that they loved Nevada County and considered moving here but Ashland had a better infrastructure and pleasantly organized community. I couldn’t argue with them. Ashland has had it’s issues but residents are willling to tax themselves to maintain their schools and fought AT&T in the late 1990′s to get the city and it’s residents logged into the internet age.
And again their corporate masters are pleased…
It was interesting to note that both Lonely Planet and Outside magaziine cited “environmentalism” (and by that I mean collaborative efforts by SYRCL and others to “save the Yuba,” etc.) and environmental poets such as Gary Snyder as a real plus to our little community — making it unique, livable, etc. There was no mention of Mark Meckler. Now if we could just catch up to the perception. LOL.
We could go for weeks just on the finding in this Pew Report on politics and partisanship. I always wait for the Pew studies on politics and religion to come out, because they are the best long term social science research in the country, even if some on the right may not see the connection between “social” and “science” (I can’t wait to hear the first blogger say social science is not ‘real’ science).
They may even make a connections between the similarity of the words “social” and socialism, and point out that all social science is thus an extension of Agenda 21!. And since the Pew Charitable Trust supports research on climate change, the Pew Research studies (which have no real connection other than the name Pew from the original benefactors) must be A21 propaganda.
All this is just my way of saying that in the modern era there need be no connection between facts, truth, ethics, reality and politics. The current modus operandi seems to be to tell a lie so colossal that no one could believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.
http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/partisan-polarization-surges-in-bush-obama-years/
But here is the story in a nutshell: we are more polarized, our values are dividing, the Republican party is more than 90% white, the Democratic party and self identified “independents” are picking up all the racial and ethnic diversity in the country, and the big divide is over the role of government in helping people, protecting the environment, and securing basic rights (which Republicans would call being a ‘real’ American on immigration, same sex marriage and religion).
I will even paraphrase more (but the findings are much more complex and I encourage all readers here to dig in): the Republican party is the party of white people who say “I got mine so screw you” and the Democratic party is the party of working people striving to do better for themselves and their children in future generations (as evidenced by their definition of the role of government still being relevant). Sure, I am biased, but everyone is biased–read the data and ask yourself, what does it mean to believe there is still a role for government if it is not about securing rights and opportunities for future generations?
So, after all these years, the basic split in the country, largely driven by race, that occurred after the southern strategy of the 1960′s remains–and our values have simply hardened, and are now coming close to causing civic strife.
When push comes to shove I will stand with working people, immigrants, racial and ethnic and religious minorities, women, the poor, and the disadvantaged. Republicans now call that collectivism, but I say what the hell is capitalism about of its is not making life better for all people?
And this is the basic cause of why people are so mean, nasty and brutish. That, according to Hobbes, may have always been the state of nature, but ask yourself as well, are we happy with a life that is nasty, short and brutish, or are we happy striving for something more?
Just because the state of nature exists does not mean I have to spend my life as a servant to it, I can strive to do more–and at the end of the day that is the real partisan divide–those who strive to overcome the state of nature and do better, and those who bow to the baser ‘truths’ of life, who accept that we are in fact insignificnat and merely predestined to be as we are. Give me the fight to overcome predestination–I will at least die happy.
Jeff:
Thank you,
Frank Way
Nevada County Democratic Central Committee
You’ve only been here 7 years, Jeff? How much you’ve missed!
I’ve been here 33 years. Politics was pretty decient for the most part. Then conservatives made an issue of a long standing community plan, NH2020, They made every non-partisan election in this county partisan and the hate and personal attacks they waged was the most vicisious I’ve ever seen. Drew Bedwell and his ilk went around saying that UN Helicopers would invade Nevada County…..etc….etc…. When Drew went door to door in our neighborhood he shoved his foot in our tenant’s door and souted “You’re going to listen to me!” When Ackerman became editor of The Union he became the soul voice of the conservatives and dedicated his paper to every made up lie and exaggeration ever concieved. It was a fire storm to be sure.
Then there was the conservative leader of the property right’s group who was arrested and convicted of trying to hire a hit man to kill his neighbor over an easement dispute. See how much you missed?
If many of the conservatives want everyone in the community to join them, vote like them, and think like them, why do they hurl insults? I wouldn’t want to associate with anyone who constantly nags, insults, tells lies, back stabs, throws hissy fits, and berates me. Rather than state their position in an adult-like, grown-up, mature manner they prefer to get in your face and screech the “my way or the highway” mantra. There very few conservatives that are rational and I enjoy discussing matters with them. If the others would just grow up, maybe some of the vitriolic divisiveness will fade.
When we bought our land here 40 years ago, we weren’t particularly paying attention to politics. If we had, and it had been then like it is now, we probably would have kept on shopping elsewhere.
On the other hand, we love our community of friends here in Nevada County, most of whom are environmental and civic activists, progressives … people who walk their talk, and their talk is for the most part gentle, intelligent and humane.
We believe you can find this sort of community pretty much anywhere, so in an important sense you create the sort of community you want to belong to.
What didn’t exist 40 years ago was the right-wing disinformation infrastructure. The “hardening” Steve speaks of permeates the culture, so that even families now speak among themselves with more vitriol, because that seems to be the dominant tenor of the “civic dialog.” I’ve experienced this within my family, and it’s very sad.
Don, there is a glittering gem of lifes great truth in your post. Community is everywhere; one creates the sort of community they want to belong to. For this reason I have been able to find beauty, companionship, stimulation, and inspiration everywhere I have ever lived–from a small town in rural Wyoming to a dense urban desert, from red to blue, from rich to poor– because people are basically good.
I, too, have now lived here for 7 years, plus a few years in Chico, first visiting the area and a married couple who I’ve known–before marrige–over 50 years, in 1975; they’re still in N.C. Best friends of the best kind. Coming here from Orange Co. and O’side, home to Camp Pendelton, conservative stongholds, I have no recollection of anything near the nasty vitriol from the right as I’ve discovered here. I was astonished, particularly at the stunningly low level of debate of one blogger who–paraphrasing–brags that his grandchildren are smarter than the fool, Paul Krugman. Such unfounded hubris. The others aren’t much better, all Big Mouth Bass in a small pond.
Ed, I imagine it depends on where you lived in OC. My old neighborhood wasn’t bad but working in Irvine was awful. If you weren’t in goose step looking like a cookie cutter, you didn’t get very far.
A late reply, Annie, but when I was down south, I wasn’t blogging–too busy writing my book; up at 3:00 a.m., or so, at work by 7 a.m., then a run at the beach with my Aussie and on weekends more hours working on my book. Except for the screaming co-worker and right wing fanatic who was boss of the site where I worked, I didn’t get involved. She even had Rush playing on radio during school hours. She and husband hated everything about liberals, but he had been 20 year Marine and was then a SWAT cop, and she a teacher since age 21, both having made their living off the tax payers their entire lives, but hating government. Gun lovers, both. But she liked me since I’
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been a Marine. I only started to blog when I became totally disgusted with the Union, and began searching for another source of balanced local news. So, up here, I’m paying attention; down south, I really wasn’t.