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Environment

One Nation Under Elvis: An Environmentalism for Us All

By Rebecca Solnit, Orion Magazine. Posted March 20, 2008.


Answering that requires digging into American race and class wars, and into the broad crises of environmentalism.
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The biggest wilderness I've ever been in -- a roadless area roughly the size of Portugal with about fifty contiguous watersheds and the whole panoply of charismatic macrofauna doing their thing undisturbed -- is another story. This one is about what happened afterward, when I and the Canadian environmentalists I'd been traveling with arrived at the nearest settlement, a logging town in the far northeast corner of British Columbia consisting of a raw row of buildings on either side of the highway to Alaska.

We were celebrating two weeks of rafting down the central river in that ungulate- and predator-rich paradise at the outpost's big honky-tonkish nightclub, where the DJ kept playing country songs, to which all the locals would loop around gracefully, clasped together. But my compadres kept making faces of disgust at the music and asking the DJ to put on something else. He'd oblige with reggae, mostly, and we'd wave our limbs vaguely, dancing solo and free-form as white people have danced to rock-and-roll since the mid-1960s. Everyone else would sit down to wait this other music out. It was not a great movement-building exercise. How far were you going to get with a community when you couldn't stand their music or even be diplomatic about it? I've been through dozens of versions of that scene over the years and got reminded of it last year by my letter from Dick.

He really was named Dick. From a return address in the exorbitantly expensive near-San Francisco countryside, he sent me a typewritten note about a section in a recent book of mine. He declared, "The country music parts of the US you love so much are also home of the most racist, reactionary, religiously authoritarian (i.e., Dominionist) people in the country. You don't have to go far: just look @ voting patterns among rednecks descendants of the white yeomanry, if you wish to be polite) in the Central Valley. They love Bush and are very backward people by the standards of the Enlightenment. The Q might be, what is the correlation between country music and political backwardness, if any?"

My first question for Dick might be: which country music? You could cite Johnny Cash's long-term commitment to Native American rights and stance against the Vietnam War (he called himself "a dove with claws") or the song about interracial love that Merle Haggard wrote (but his record company refused to release, though the minor country star Tony Booth had a hit with "Irma Jackson" in 1970) or "I Believe the South Is Gonna Rise Again," boldly sung by Tanya Tucker in 1974:

Our neighbors in the big house called us redneck

Cause we lived in a poor share-croppers shack

The Jacksons down the road were poor like we were

But our skin was white and theirs was black

But I believe the south is gonna rise again

But not the way we thought it would back then

I mean everybody hand in hand ...

Or you could just mention medium-sized country star Charley Pride (thirty-six Billboard No. 1 country hits), who also doesn't fit Dick's redneck designation because he is African American.

In terms of political orientation, you could cite the Texas-based Dixie Chicks, who refused to back down from criticizing Bush on the brink of the current war. They were, as their recent hit had it, "Not Ready to Make Nice." Though corporate country stars like Toby Keith stampeded to support the so-called war on terror, alt. country musicians like Steve Earle charged just as hard in the opposite direction. Country music is a complex beast, sometimes in resistance to or mockery of the mainstream and the rural South, sometimes a mirror of or hymn to it, the product of many voices over many eras, arisen from a culture that was never pure anything, including white. (And its current listening territory includes much of the English-speaking world.)

Reprint Notice:
This article appears in the September/October 2007 issue of Orion magazine, 187 Main Street, Great Barrington, MA 01230, 888/909-6568, ($40/year for 6 issues). Subscriptions are available online: www.orionmagazine.org.

Another set of questions might be why Dick despises the people and places that spawned the music, and what larger rifts his attitude reveals. Answering them requires digging into the deep history of American music and American race and class wars, and into the broad crises of environmentalism in recent years.

Those wars about race and class are peculiarly evident in the stories we tell about Elvis. I was raised on the tale that Elvis stole his music from black people. The story told one way makes Elvis Presley a thief rather than someone who bridged great divides by hybridizing musical traditions and brought the lush energetic force of African-American music into white ears and hearts and loins. It ignores his many white influences, from bluesy Hank Williams to schmaltzy Perry Como, his genius in synthesizing multiple American traditions into something unprecedented, and the raw power of his own voice and vocal style. It ignores, too, the lack of an apartheid regime in American roots music. White country blues and white gospel were part of the rich river of sound that came out of the South long before Presley. Despite segregation, black and white musicians learned from each other and influenced each other. (Another view of Elvis, from Billboard magazine in 1958, stated, "In one aspect of America's cultural life, integration has already taken place.")


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See more stories tagged with: environment, environmental movement, racism, class, south

Rebecca Solnit is the author of 'Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities'.

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However...
Posted by: kwalla on Mar 20, 2008 2:36 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
it's not really an eithor/or kind of question in reality.

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whats the point of this article
Posted by: Joe on Mar 20, 2008 5:11 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
it's just attempt to put down people and justify some sort of superiority the writer belives he/she has. it clearly not attempting to seek out any truth. how about talking with people from the rural areas. i may not agree with their solutions but i understand their logic.

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Just...odd?
Posted by: ABetterFuture on Mar 20, 2008 5:39 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The title is strange for the context of the article, not limited to the false dichotomy presented in the title.

Further, I find it telling that Dick entered in a strange bar, sneered contemptuously at all the hicks, demanded they play "stranger" music for his enjoyment--which they did--and yet he and others like him considers the rubes to be the ignorant, exclusionary fat heads in the room.

Hell, maybe they might have tried to dance to reggae, if only his ginormous ego wasn't flopping wetly all over the dance floor.

The Dick's of the world keep the Rush Limbaugh's in business, in a manner of speaking.

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Rebecca knows
Posted by: zeofredo on Mar 20, 2008 6:19 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I always enjoy hearing from this thoughtful writer. As someone who was once described by his peers as 'the redneck intellect', I feel this is a very appropriate topic to address. Of course, in reality I was more an urban flaneur who affected a drawl and dropped big words here and there for the bizarre effect it made at parties years ago, but I was addressing the same divide between pretentious lefties and seemingly uninspired rural folk. Given a choice between the two if I had to survive a winter in the woods, however, I'd surely cast my lot with the down-home contingent without further debate.

Divisiveness will only limit our aims as enlightened progressives. The inability to hang with 'others' is immaturity and intolerance rather than expressive of liberal values. This means, for example, that vegetarians who have been invited to dinner by locals may have to forgo their lofty bearing and dig in to some critter sometimes.

Without a broader consensus across society, there will be no advancement of values unless we act inclusively and without harsh judgment.

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Divisive Discussion Fatigue
Posted by: blondesprite on Mar 20, 2008 6:24 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I am tired of articles and discussions which divide us into nattering, typing, market segments,niches of Pros and Cons or fodder for those who analyze this type of BS.
The title of this article and the substance (or lack) of it, is confusing. This bait and switch, cheap shot, headline grabbing tactic seems to be a disturbing trend.
Alternet...catch a clue...stereotypes are evil.

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Outstanding Article
Posted by: Jayzer on Mar 20, 2008 6:31 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I too find the country music-urban tastes divide to be artificial and frustrating. More importantly, I also find the notion of dismissing country folk as ignorant hicks and "rednecks" an ironic form of prejudice to adopt among environmentalists and urban people in general, who, like everyone else, need to eat.

I've had the privilege, over my lifetime, of living in suburbia, rural America and in large cities. I've been living in NYC for the past 20 years, but had been raised in a New Jersey suburb and had spent my teenage and early adult years in rural communities in Maine and Oregon, so I've come to see several prisms of viewpoint around the nation. I can't say that I'm all that well acquainted with the Deep South, but rural folk in the Pacific Northwest are sometimes derided as rednecks, when in fact, they may well be somewhat provincial only due to the fact that they haven't had the opportunity to travel.

But provincialism can be just as much a condition for a person living in the Bronx or in Chevy Chase, MD as it is for anyone living in Mapleton, Oregon.

And yes---environmentalists in their zeal for pristine natural settings are often dismissive of people who live and work in the rural surroundings that they claim to admire. But here's a hint---the people are part and parcel of that landscape you wish to preserve.

I have no final answers that are all encompassing, but one thing I'd like our government to consider (and a movement to match this idea) is to encourage NEW young organic farmers with tax credits and relocation expenses---something along the lines of what WPA projects were meant to do back in the 1930s.

I'm sure that others may have similar worthy suggestions. For further reading, one can hardly go wrong with the works of Wendell Berry.

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» Nice comment...no other... Posted by: ABetterFuture
This piece's awful title is not from the writer
Posted by: RSolnit on Mar 20, 2008 7:11 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just for the record, that awful and misleading title is not mine. The piece's title is "One Nation Under Elvis: An Environmentalism for All of Us." I was really dismayed to find that Alternet felt free to put a misleading and obnoxious title on a writer's work without permission and have protested to them.

Thanks, readers.

Rebecca Solnit

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» one thing, though Posted by: KaptainSpiffy
» Praise and empathy Posted by: zeofredo
» Not Surprising Posted by: Illiteratilumen
Hunters and environmentalists can be allies only if
Posted by: maxpayne on Mar 20, 2008 7:19 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the Democrats take the environment seriously and correctly point out that it was RAYGUN who invented "gun control" and that it is the neocons, not the liberals and progressives, who are for higher taxation and license fees against law abiding hunters. You have to keep fighting for solar, wind, geothermal, petroleum free biofuels such as hemp, etc ...

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I like this article
Posted by: IAlady on Mar 20, 2008 8:34 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Some of the posts to this article seem to come from the snooty liberals that the author was writing about who start sputtering and spouting as soon as they smell any sort of dichotomy to dismantle (I realize the author didn't choose the title either) This article is right on in many ways. I work as an organizer in rural Iowa helping communities fight hog factories for the most part-corporate Ag interests use propaganda to try to divide farmers from "environmentalists" and "activists" There are a great many people-Republican, Democrat or Independent-who care what happens to the environment and their communities in this state at least. I know that our organization would be nothing without them-it is a grave mistake to make assumptions about who is going to be on your side or not.

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» RE: I like this article Posted by: Jayzer
Neither. The author is a bigot.
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Mar 20, 2008 9:36 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
People are people, regardless of where they live. We are all human beings. Get it?

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To answer the question in the title,
Posted by: hurricane hugo on Mar 20, 2008 10:04 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
All of the above and more.

jdfu!

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Careful For What You Preach
Posted by: Godzilla1916 on Mar 20, 2008 1:46 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The author is quick to identify judgemental languaging in others; however, does not this compassion-less thinking also apply to her?

Here she attacks passionate people who are taking a stand:

"Grubby, furry, childless pseudo-nomads who could screw up all they wanted and live hand to mouth until something went wrong and the long arm of middle-class parents reached out to rescue them scorned the tough economic choices of people with kids, mortgages, and no bail-out plan or white-collar options."

I am tired of people who blow off radical activist as trust-fund babies.Sure some of the community may fit this bill, but please you are generalizing. Do you Rebbecca listen to your own speaches:

"There are particular organizations as well as general tendencies that make me hopeful. Among them are the resurgent interest in where food actually comes from, the growing tendency to condemn less and build coalitions more, and a stronger capacity for thinking systemically."

Key words here are "build coalitions" It goes both ways baby!

Bryan D.

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snooty liberals and divisiveness
Posted by: ongho on Mar 20, 2008 7:45 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Ms. Solnit (as well as several posters here) seem to complain that effete liberal snobs don't grow their own food or work with their hands - and worst of all, don't like country music. Shades of Spiro Agnew!

I don't care much for country music -- or rap, for that matter. Still, I've heard songs from both genre that I enjoy. I also form my opinions of country folks as well as blacks based on the individual people involved.

The contemporary meaning of the term "redneck" is much broader than the original reference to a hard-working, laconic farmer who gets sunburned on the back of his neck from being out in the sun all day. To me the term refers to a willfully ignorant and usually white person, who is prejudiced against blacks, foreigners, "librals" of any color, fervently and irrationally patriotic, stubbornly unaware of American history in general, and in complete denial of America's long history of misbehavior, and who is generally intolerant toward those with other beliefs and lifestyles.

A good number of urban Americans, including East Coasters fit the bill, including not a few Harvard and Yale grads -- George Bush Jr. being a prime example.

I wonder if Ms. Solnit realizes that it is likely that a similar percentage of farmers, local townspeople, professors and wall street bankers are lazy, shifty, dishonest good-for-nothings who will slough off and drink alcohol at every opportunity that presents itself? And that a similar percentage are honest, hard-working souls?

I also wonder what percentage of Ms. Solnit's group of environmentalists may be vegetarian? Will Ms. Solnit accord the same respect to ethical vegetarians that she demands be accorded to hard-working country folk? After all, the environment consists not only of human beings, but of many species, all of whom are able to feel pain and fear. Is saving the hypothetical future of a species any more imporant than saving the actual concrete lives of individual members of the species in the here and now?

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interesting article that brings out the true rural lifestyle to all.
Posted by: cherylsass123 on Mar 20, 2008 11:26 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I found this article very interesting, especially the part where the so called " liberal" left; those with the formal education; consider the rural people to be stupid and ignorant right wingers. and yes, the part where the right wingers have acted like the "friend of the farmer/rancher" so to speak; BUT really are out to destroy the countryside and exploit it for oil, gas, commercial farms, is very true. but the part where that dude named dick had this attitude problem toward " those ignorant central valley people" well that hit home. sounds much like what I hear around here all the time. and the part about the central valley in california, and that dude's attitude problem toward, as he saw them; "ignorant country music fans all of them republicans."

well the condo where my mom lives has to be sold to pay off her assisted living debt; and so- here I am- a transsexual woman in transition; on an SSDI disability check with no college degree and no work experience. legally here in CT, I am female; this with a psycologist's note I used at DMV. but , thanks to the bush right wing, I do not have the rights, as an american born citizen; to live free of discrimination; in many states due to "real ID act" shit! california/oregon, and a few others are the ONLY states where I wouyld still have LGBT/transgender, anti- discrimination rights!
I get $657 a month to live on- like that is really gonna pay the bills and $700-900 rent; even if I did want to stay here in conn. and live in the disgustingly-urban decayed cities of waterbury, bridgeport or downtown seymour/naugatuck. besides, I am so sick of those so called " educated liberals" whom, much like that dick dude; see rural people much the same way! being basically "unemployable"[ exception being " wal mart" PT crap jobs w/o medical insurance!] , I am trying to get my ebay store going strong; as I would love to just get away from all these pseudo-intellectual, yuppie-left/moderate "liberals" like that dick dude, and move to someplace where I could both afford to live; plus still have rights. being that even $500-600[Yreka/Red Bluff, siskiyou/shasta/tehama county, california] is fairly "expensive" for me; yet cheap by comparison to anything around any "career-land" city or suburb like CT/NY/NJ/MA quad-state area rent; I am truly considering a a move to one of those "central valley places." It would be nice to be able to both count your change in the supermarket, and "pause for 1 sec too long at that traffic light"- and NOT deal with all these rude, money and career oriented suburban-intellectual "pseudo-rural" residents! having live briefly in a "trailer" on an upstate new york dairy farm near delhi[ meredith]in 1998- I have to admit I liked that better then living in any city/suburb. [before that, I lived 13 years in ORLANDO,FLA. sprawl-ville USA! just like southbury,CT is somewhat becoming!]
BUT I have had people say to me; " but.... many of those places out in the country would be less than welcoming toward those like you." and, "all those rednecks and religious right republican ranchers whom drive 4-wheel drive pickup trucks." then these same so called " liberals" really do not, in the least with their "healthy-organic food" and "new aged unitarian, "positive spirituality"- want to have anything to do with me. why? because, unlike them, I seem more like something in between that "uneducated trailer park trash person", and "born loser whom does not know how to act and earn a living".
the one thing they all hate to hear is that those "hillbillies" as they see them; at least are NOT in so much of a hurry that they tailgate when they drive, and are NOT rude and snotty and all absorbed in the betterment of their communities; communities which EXCLUDE those whom do not fit neatly into their socio-economic profiles! southbury and woodbury, CT- both are home of the pseudo-rural suburbanites.

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Take exception to your Bigotry......
Posted by: herbal on Mar 21, 2008 1:06 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Wait now, what about us organic farming earth muffins who live and work out here in the hinterlands?? At least we can understand the agrarian allusions of Wordsworth, the Bible and Thoreau; the prose of Pearl Buck and Wendell Berry. Who taught you to how to hold a hammer?

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Conflicts Of Interests
Posted by: Jeff Hoffman on Mar 21, 2008 12:13 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The two most disturbing points made by Rebecca Solnit's essay are that nature exists only for humans and that people who have no children and consume very little are just spoiled brats. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ms. Solnit makes some good points, but her leftist ideologies get in the way of a true understanding of ecology and/or concern for the natural world. The result is a defense of indefensible human behavior that is destroying the Earth, such as logging and cattle ranching in the west.

As to the first point, everything -- air, water, and land -- is alive, all forms of life have an equal right to exist, and there is nothing in even western, human-centered science that shows that humans are better or more important than any other form of life. Saying that those of us who advocate for wilderness to be left alone by humans look at nature as just a playground shows a total lack of understanding for what we are advocating, which is for the rest of the Earth, which humans have unfortunately managed to invade and conquer. What is this human imperialism that makes people think they have a "right" to be everywhere? How about leaving some room for other species?

As to the second point, Ms. Solnit clearly does not understand that the root causes of all environmental and ecological harms are overconsumption, which includes consuming things that should not be consumed (oil, coal, etc.), and overpopulation. I totally agree that it's completely hypocritical to rage against those who work in destructive industries while consuming the products they produce, but these "[g]rubby, furry, childless pseudo-nomads" who Ms. Solnit rails against are not generally consuming the fruits of these evil industries. By their lack of consumption and breeding, they are thus far friendlier to the Earth than the rural people who make their livings by destroying it.

"Whatever you think of arid-lands ranching, he seemed to be doing it pretty well. He boasted of grass up to his cows' bellies, talked about moving the cows around to prevent erosion, and deplored the gold mines that are doing far worse things to the region."

This is just plain wrong. The cattle industry has caused more damage to the western U.S. than any other industry and does so in many ways. The cattle industry has replaced the native grasses of the West with non-native ones, destroyed riparian areas, fenced the West, killed native predators, and generally turned the western grasslands into deserts. There is NO WAY to bring large, heavy, non-native animals into a fragile, arid ecosystem and do it "pretty well," or in any way that's not totally ecologically destructive. The "common ground" that Ms. Solnit says the Quivira Coalition has found with ranchers does not exist, unless a portion of the planet is to be sacrificed in order to allow people to make money by destroying the Earth. Cattle should be completely removed from the West, period.

Ms. Solnit also makes the false assumption that people who live "closest to 'the environment'" have some special knowledge of or love for it. This is true of traditional indigenous people, but white invaders knew and cared little for the natural environment, and more often hated and wanted to tame it. Jobs like logging, mining, and ranching in the west cause extreme ecological harm and destruction, and have no moral legitimacy. The I-was-only-doing-my-job defense was rejected at Nuremberg, but has been embraced by the right and left alike in this highly immoral country that worships money and business above all else.

Unfortunately, the only way that wilderness and wildlife advocates can find common ground with rural people in the U.S. is if the latter can live in a more natural, pre-European manner. Otherwise, we must fight these people, not compromise with them.

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A southern view
Posted by: cruzecon on Mar 21, 2008 1:44 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I find this writer has portrayed the "daily reality" of my little corner of Appalachia quite well.
I was born right here, traveled around the world in the military and lived in a lot of different cultures and ended up right back where I started when my mother needed care, because that is just how I was raised.
My family was one of the few that went from being sharecroppers to landowners and college educated and back to the land only for it to be taken away as described in many a country song.
The disconnect between people who love the land because they like to work it for their livlihood and those who have a "big picture" view that is more ideological or idealistic idea of "wilderness" or "natural", than is always practical comes down to that one word, "practical".
This article does a fine job of pointing out that the archetype of Elvis, IS/WAS and CAN BE AGAIN, a unifying concept that MUST be explored as common ground for "practical conservation and ecological preservation and management".
It is NOT an "Us against Them". That is the Babel like confusion that Straussian, Conservative Elitists have carefully crafted by choice of words, colors, and visual images and no matter how much any of us thinks we are "better than that", in reality this article does a good job, pointing out how each "group" has accepted it's stereotype and in using the words given to them by people like Karl Rove, has each, allowed the discussion to be only about false issues that are the smoke and mirrors behind which real damage to the things we all care about is being undertaken in plain view but like the Emperor's subjects, we have only been seeing what we were told was there.
Perhaps to paraphrase the King, "A little less conversation and a little more action" taken with just the facts - Americans want America for themselves NOT corporations and not, dare I say it, for the wealthy elite now controlling OUR Government, who seem poised to sell out the people's places for their own private consumption.

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» What Is Practical Posted by: Jeff Hoffman