Thought y’all might find the above interesting. Samuel Tenenbaum sent it to me.
It hurts, but NC has room to talk. They’ve invested, while we’ve wallowed in self-destructive ideological wrangling — an argument that we, the people of South Carolina, have been on the losing end of, every time. While NC pulled farther and farther ahead of us.
In case you have trouble with the embed, here’s a link to the site of the group that did the video.
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A good description of South Carolina’s position toward building a better future for its citizens, over the past generation or so: Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius…
Yeah, the old lunatic asylum bit. Petigru nailed it.
I fear True Believers in our fair state will just shrug and say “Damn proud of it.” [sigh]
Well it is “A vale of humility between two mountains of conceit.”
I think the best favor they could do us is to dam all rivers leading into SC and charge us hard and heavy. Only two things have ever changed us, starvation and violence. Everything else offers slow decay.
Interesting you should say that, Jesse. Gotta tell ya, that’s one thing NC is NOT.
Ever since I came back here to work in 1987, I’ve noticed something: When NC deigns to notice SC at all, it’s to sneer.
An example: Back in the days when I occasionally read The Charlotte Observer (it’s been some years since I’ve had one lying around — budget cuts, you know), there was a certain tone on the editorial page. While we might decry some problem in our state, and push for ways to solve that problem, making suggestions for a positive course, the Observer took a “don’t give a damn” approach. It was “look at those idiots down there,” basically. I remember one piece in particular — I don’t recall the specific issue right now, but it was a serious issue we were dealing with — that the Observer used as an occasion to compare us to the Three Stooges. In other words — in spite of the fact that, since they are on the border, a huge portion of their readership was South Carolinian — the board seemed to have no stake in South Carolina’s situation at all. It was just something to look down on, and feel superior.
Rather off-putting, really. It caused me to have a lower opinion of the Observer than the rather high one I had before I came to work here.
What superficial moron could be influenced by superficial innuendo rather than substantive facts? HINT: Not us, NC residents were being encouraged to feel complacent.
However, any faint souls feeling too embarrassed about life in the Palmetto State to perservere should perhaps be encouraged to move on anyway.
One perseveres because one was born here and wishes to leave it a better place. One does despair from time to time, though.
and Brad, it was The Observer, not The State, I am told by my ex-Observer editor brother, that broke the Holderman saga….sticks in your craw?
and plenty of South Carolinians sneer right back at the crackers in the Tarheel state. Snobbery at its finest!
@Juan – not until we’ve worked long enough to collect our state pensions.
Juan, FYI, our best and brightest young adults haven’t been moving out of SC for over a generation out of “embarrassment”. Silicon Valley we ain’t.
As far as the ad, I really can’t say I care one way or the other. I’d just call it “cute”. My rage is toward ourselves and constant need to screw ourselves over at any chance we get.
If we could export our “foot guns” we’d be the richest state in the union.
“Love it or leave it” was stupid in the 60s, Juan. Today, it’s moronic, particularly given that the outstanding condition of South Carolina’s highways makes it difficult to get to the border.
Or is that the intent?
Background on the group that produced this video:
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=7360
Yeah, that’s the sort of group I assumed it was. What had you thought?
While I don’t like being dissed by outsiders, I think there’s much truth to the ad. I am a Columbia native now living in the Upstate, and I have become more acquainted with NC by traveling there fairly often, watching its TV stations, and listening to its radio stations.
My husband and I can trace our South Carolina lineages back many generations, and we do love our state, but we are increasingly disgusted by the backwards path our elected leaders are intent on forging. And the voters are all too willing to put these folks in office.