Utah is the Reddest State in the Nation. We are more like the South than the South in our conservatism, but less like it in our inclusiveness. Utah goes out of its way to encourage immigrants to come from far flung places and take low wage jobs if they'll agree to join the Mormon Church. That's what Mormon Missionaries are all about—bringing in the sheep so they can tithe and work for the Church in it's many "non-profit" ventures.
Utah is orderly. It's orderly and clean. It's also spectacularly rich in natural beauty and opportunities for sports. Visitors often remark on Utah's cleanliness. Utah towns and cities have wide streets laid out in orderly grids that are clean and almost sparkly. Get on a plane to fly to Utah and you'll be struck by the number of pretty blonds traveling with blond children with straight white teeth returning home from one of the many Disney locations or some other very wholesome family-friendly vacation destination. They'll all be tan and remarkably well behaved. But you'll be shocked by how much they'll all resemble the perfect family in an ad for a cosmetic dentist or Mitt or Jon's vision of the perfect American Future if either of them wins the Presidential Jackpot.
I have no voice in the larger political landscape of Utah politics. My vote has never counted in a Presidential election if I cast it in Utah, though this has never stopped me from voting. I feel like an exile living here. I'm profoundly alienated from the larger culture here. So much so that I don't take the paper, don't watch local news, don't pay too much attention to what Utah's idiot Senators and Representatives do. I used to follow the careers of Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett because I knew them from the time they were both on the City Council. I became a night supervisor at the Central City Community Center after Bennett's police goons kept getting their squad cars bombed in their attempt to "police" the center failed. I was never once menaced nor was there ever violence while I was on duty. God what victory that was! Take that Bob! I used to do Orrin's make up for local interviews. I always wondered how such a womanly man managed to avoid scandal all these years in Washington. I'm still waiting for something to undo him besides the Tea Party. But it is the Tea Party that's made Utah politics unbearable for me to continue following. It's just too awful now.
My neighborhood is all that saves my sanity or what's left of it. I live in one of the best little enclaves in downtown Salt Lake City. More on that in another post.
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15 comments:
Thank you, Peggy.
Stay strong!
We're with you.
S
David, Susan. thanks for reading. I just had to get the beginning of this rant off my chest. It's just the beginning.
...Mitt or Jon's vision of the perfect American Future if either of them wins the Presidential Jackpot.
There is surely something bad in the water when Huntsman is the leftist in the republican nuthouse.
I feel like an exile living here. I'm profoundly alienated from the larger culture here. So much so that I don't take the paper, don't watch local news...
I think I mentioned the samething to you once about my situation where I live. I am not only in exile where I live with nearly zero social contacts I have to be very careful where I voice an opinion, lots of weapons where I live and accidents happen all the time.
I've heard the insane ramblings of Second Amendment solutions talked about long before the bitch from Nevada went national.
When I was in Salt Lake City, I too was so stuck by Utah. So squeaky clean, perfect. The politics is so different than Mass., where I am from. Good God, I was an alien on another planet. I thought someone would recognize the alien, and scoop me up and try to convert me. But I felt only benevolence. Mo one argued with me or harassed me, or even looked at me judgmentally. Everyone was so wholesome and healthy looking and yet walked around as if in a daze.
Beach, the only time I felt that kind of violent hostility was when I was marching with my mother for passage of the ERA around the Mormon Temple. I've done a lot of protest marching but I've never been that scared. Mormon men were spitting at us, threatening us with rape, and shootings. But when you aren't a woman marching for your civil rights this is the cleanest, NICEST place in the world. Butter wouldn't melt in anyone's mouth.
Baron, this is the land of the Stepford wives and children. We're the nicey nicey folks. Watch Mitt Romney. He has a real hard time with his emotions. He's very unused to women challangeing him, so when some woman in the audience heckles him he gets real real flustered. He doesn't know what to do with an emotion like anger.
These are the same reasons why, after almost four years in Carson City, NV, we hardly know anyone and never socialize with the locals. If I could get groceries delivered, I probably wouldn't leave the house at all. I can't wait until we move back to California next spring....
JR, If I didn't live in this neighborhood, I couldn't live in Utah. I have about a two mile range of travel for shoping and doctor's visits and trips to friends. That's it. I will not venture outside my comfort zone. Those days are over. I no longer trust myself to not get mouthy with the locals.
I have other Utah friends, they feel like strangers in a strange land.
I live in a Blue State & a college town... but half the state (rural east) is red! If it were not for the liberal metro areas, Oregon might be a part of the red wasteland.
Still we've had our share of Dolts for politicians.
But the blue streak is strong, even though folks had to fight like hell on some issues- like no nukes, and death w dignity... often having to vote repeatedly to keep a law. But out of staters worked hard to not let gay marriage here be legal. We have some watered down civil union sub par item, not the same as marriage.
Where I live the demographic is damn near 100% republican. Most of them don't even understand what a republican is. They've just been conditioned by local media to hate democrats.
One of our neighbors hates big government zoning and leash laws. I shit in his yard every chance I get.
You're right about the cleanliness of Mormans. Nauvoo, with it's new temple are a little over an hour from my house. It is very clean.
hey red neck -)
On that sad day marking the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I was reading the article "Dems Fret Aloud Over Obama's Re-Election" and all the comments in my NYTimes. It looks like a lot of fellow Democrats want to throw Obama under the bus and I can understand their frustration. The number of people Obama has thrown under the bus would give me carpa tunnel syndrome if I had to type them all!
I am really starting to get nervous that Rick Perry would run over Obama in the presidential election.
I think its time we started supporting Hillary to challenge Obama in a primary. I'm hoping we can start a grass roots movement in the blogosphere.
Let's face the facts fellow Democrats. Obama has really turned out to be a poor president who has been bought by the Multi-national banks and corporations. His only ability is to give smooth sounding speeches and campaign!
Where are you? I found your blog a couple of weeks ago, and loved it. And you went away? Please, do come back!
One thing that can't be done is running a Dem. against Obama in the primary. That will guarantee (almost) a Perry or even Romney or Christie or whoever victory. The fact that Obama in many ways reflects the interests of money and power is simply symptomatic of how our system works. Money is power. It takes vast amounts of money to succeed in politics. Otherwise, Bayard Rustin would already have been the first black president.
Welcome to Stepford State, where the children are on Ritalin and the women are on Prozac, stoned into the bombed age. And the men are all high believing their genitalia will pass through the veil to their celestial godhoods.
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