Yup, that sounds like Klamath Falls all right, my home town. Not much changed there. And this Blue Oregon Portland crowd, think Oregon has all changed. They still haven't figured out how they can eat guns and ammo down in K.Falls.

If they're stocking up for the revolution with .22 rifles, "The Man" doesn't have much to worry about!

Hmm, I'm in the "hinterlands" and neither "right" nor progressive left. I think most of us are hunkered down right now waiting and hoping that our president has the ability to create the change and encourage active business involvment to power us out of this recession.

I checked on HB 875 - sorry, I fail to see ANYTHING from right wingers against this particular bill. If anything, the stuff on Google is all about how small farmers and organic growers will be hurt by this. So I call your HB 875 a failed stalking dog.

As to .22's being stocked up for the revolution. Puh-lease! Any self respecting revolutionary will not waste time w/a .22 weapon. They will be going for the AR 15's, Tech 9's, 30-30's, Mauser's and big bore .50's. Go peddle your fear elsewhere.

What I can't figure out is this: Gun obsessed people are stocking up on guns and ammo because they believe the government can no long protect them from crime because the government is inept, while at the very same time believing also that this same government is secretly planning to suddenly break into every gun owners home to pry all their firearms from their cold, dead hands.

These two things are the complete opposite of each other! The government cannot be inept and omnipotent at the same time.

I hope this frenzy passes without loss of life. The gun and ammo manufacturers are laughing all the way to the bank.

Conservative talk radio whips up it's fans who cling to their guns and stock up on ammo. These were once fringe elements who now occupy as much as 30% of the population in more pastoral areas of the state. We, the other 70% tend to give em a wide birth and smile painfully while they pontificate at inappropriate volume about what their favorite acerbic radio personality is spewing. We know what happens when we invade their space. Incidents like the one last week when an off-roading family encountered a hard scrabble miner and his 20 gauge. Lock and load people.

any type of single payer program, in which "some government bureaucrat" will make their health care decisions. Inexplicably, they seem to prefer those decisions being made by a corporate bureaucrat intent on making a profit.

I don't think that is so inexplicable. If the best you can do to argue for a single-payer program is that you're trading one bureaucrat for another, you haven't made a very compelling argument.

People are afraid of a single-payer program because they don't want the government telling them what they can and can't do. A private insurance company, for instance, can charge higher premiums to people who smoke cigarettes or marijuana. People can pay for the privilege or not, as they see fit and can afford. How long do you think it would be before a single-payer plan forced people to quit at the expense of losing coverage altogether? I've seen such arguments in comments on this very blog asserting that since "we're all subsidizing the health care of people who [fill-in-the-blank-with-whatever-behavior-is-deemed-unhealthy], we're entitled to tax/prohibit/punish/etc. that behavior however we see fit." And that's before a government-run single-payer plan has been instituted. It will only get worse if one is instituted.

People are afraid because they value their freedom.

The government cannot be inept and omnipotent at the same time.

No, the former is definitely more accurate than the latter (and if the latter were possible then it wouldn't do any good to horde guns).

The gun and ammo manufacturers are laughing all the way to the bank.

And this would be good for our ailing economy, right?

People are afraid because they value their freedom.

That statement has got to be the single biggest piece of bulldoody I have ever seen written here. People are afraid b/c they are either to stupid, or worse, to lazy to investigate issues for themselves. They instead rely on idiots, w/ a financial interest in stoking their paranoia and fear, to tell them what to think b/c they have been convinced these talking heads are "looking out for them."

Your creator made you sentient. Try honoring him/her/it by using those powers for once.

Meh...Look who lives out there. Lots of older people. The young folks go to college in liberal bastions like Portland and Eugene. As morbid as this is going to sound. The Bush era lost the youth for conservatives. I read somewhere the average age of Fox News viewership is 67. It's only a matter of time...

By geographic area, those "hinterlands" are a majority of the country.

Look at the House map, red and blue, and you get a much, much more representative picture than the electoral map.

Do acres of land vote?

I don't think it's a matter of time/age, nor is it such a "hinterland" issue. Have folks seen any of the video from the Cincinatti Tea Party protest? There were lots of young people, and there will probably be lots more young (and older) people at the rallies planned for Wednesday.

The right wing is doing a good job of providing scapegoats for folks' economic hard times: big government, immigrants, socialists, Obama, etc. Progressives are losing the battle for hearts and minds, and the potential for the country to creep more towards fascism is growing.

Anyone have any good ideas on how to challenge this? Progressives don't have much to rally around--any sympathetic media is shrill (Air America) or tiny. Our progressive politicians are busy expanding the war on terror and giving bailouts to their corporate donors (things the far right also happen to oppose, making this all the more complicated). I wish it were otherwise, but I pretty much think we're screwed.

Dear Michael M. I don't think you realize how private insurance works. You seem to think that there are multitudes of insurance companies out there dying to insure you and it's simply up to you to decide which one and how much to pay. I wish.

If there is anything remotely wrong with you at all many insurance companies won't touch you with a ten foot pole no matter how much you would theoretically be willing to pay for their services. That's called a pre-existing condition. That is, if you are actually sick and have health problems and need their services, they are unwilling to provide them because you would negatively impact their profits which is what they are actually all about in spite of whatever cute and cuddly commercials they run.

Medicare, as an example, takes everybody. Their overhead is 3 to 5% of total costs. Private insurance can be up to 30%. What costs so much? The infrastructure designed by insurance companies to process and deny your claims. Remember they are not in the job of paying for health services, they are in the job of making a profit and paying your claim for your appendectomy or whatever interferes with job one.

We have millions of uninsured in America. Not out of choice, but simply because health insurance simply costs too much. One normal, average, non-catastrophic illness for an uninsured person could put them in debt for the rest of their life.

Basic health care is simply too important to be left to for-profit enterprises. Where's the freedom when you have to worry about being ill, even if you have health insurance, and worrying that treatment to save your life will result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in uncovered expenses you will never be able to pay?

We spend too much and get much too little. That's not freedom. Freedom is getting everyone in America health care that they don't have to worry about.

I hope President Obama stays absolutely silent about "gun control". Wouldn't it be great if all the gullible devotees of R. Limbaugh and S.Hannity finally found out they're being lied to. They will remember spending a pile on guns and ammo for no reason!

To those who are concerned about the carnage all those guns might cause I would say that most of the victims will be the gun owners themselves or members of their immediate households...

OK, the fringe right can have Klamath County. Lake, Malheur and Harney, too. As long as we can have Washington, Clackamas and half of Marion stay with the Democrats.

Gee, look at all that land you Republicans will be getting, whatever will we do.... :-)

"The government cannot be inept and omnipotent at the same time."

Sure it can. They are inept at everything except for hanging onto power. Unless you can tell me some problms govt has solved lately without playing the "not enough taxes" or "its the Repubs fault" cards.

First off, there is no place on an Oregon map with the name, "Hinterlands". Byard, your post says you are from Klamath Falls, you're one of us, so let's be respectful in our tone. Starting off with "Hinterlands" is sort of insulting. Then again, the first time I put up a "guest" post on Blue Oregon, Kari called my issue, "one of those little things" in the headline when in fact it was an issue with lives hanging in the balance (rural people). If you didn't write the headline, and it was an insensitive urbanite who did, you are forgiven.

Second, as someone whose job takes them into rural people's homes for inspection work, I get to talk to a real cross section of "real" people - not the hot-heads that call into radio shows or who write letters to the editor. And people are not talking about some house bill (I could ask 100 people here what HB875 was, and I would get 100 blank looks). People are not even talking about health care. In fact, there is only one thing that I hear, and I hear it every place I go - the economy.

The first topic is usually jobs, jobs, jobs.

With unemployment "officially" at over 15%, and real unemployment over 20%, its all that people talk about. Within a couple of minutes of entering someone's house, the conversation comes around to, "Did you hear about the latest layoffs? Even Les Schwab is laying off. They're down to a bare minimum at Brightwood. Contact Lumber is down to one shift. There are no new houses being built."

And the second topic is foreclosures. "I've got five foreclosures on my block." "My cousin lost his house." "Everywhere I go I see empty houses."

And if people are honest, the last topic is fear. "I just don't know where this is headed." "How can we survive without work?"

In over 100 such conversations since the election, the following topics have NEVER come up: Sarah Palin, guns, Rush Limbaugh, Lars Larson, or the like.

So, having noted that the author's perceptions regarding what is going on out here in rural Oregon are incorrect, I have to turn it around and ask a simple question -

Byard, where did you get your information?

I'm talking with people who are outraged about health care, but against any type of single payer program, in which "some government bureaucrat" will make their health care decisions. Inexplicably, they seem to prefer those decisions being made by a corporate bureaucrat intent on making a profit.

LOL! Beautiful!

Actually, one has to feel sorry for these poor bamboozled rubes who derive all their "information" about the world from Rush, Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly, Coulter and Mike the Savage Weiner. Right-wing politicians have been screwing them and their families for decades, and they just bend over and say, "Please, sir, I want some more." It's pathetic, really.

Unless you can tell me some problms govt has solved lately without playing the "not enough taxes" or "its the Repubs fault" cards.

Please tell us about all the problems the conservatives have solved lately by playing the "cut taxes for the rich" and "deregulate everything" cards. Right-wing economic policy is a proven failure; it has driven the country over a cliff and is intellectually, ethically and morally bankrupt.

SCB - there is no information here. Speculation galore, lack of intellectual thought, and knee jerk left-wing propaganda, that's all. Take a couple of speculated and condescending data points and extrapolate it to a region.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs is the key but the private sector can't create jobs with a Congress that micromanages the daily aspects of its citizenry. Waxman's on The Hill touting his 648 page "Discussion Draft" Climate Bill. Micromanagement by the State over the daily lives of the citizenry is about to be taken to the level that will cause every libertarian in the country to have a heart attack.

There is no Change here. Just more of the same. Exchange your freedom for security. Security from terrorist, worry, and pain.

UnLib - Freedom is not worry-free health care or a worry free life. That's just peddling what Bush was peddling. Same thing, different flavor.

The thing about "people outraged about health care but opposed to single-payer" is that most of them have never really had to use their health care or are economically isolated from the reality of just how out of control the system has become. On the other hand, those who don't have any health care aren't opposed, they're hoping for anything. Sadly, the elites will make the choice for us and usually that means the most profitable model rather than a compassionate one.

Actually, and I'm surprised that no one brought this up, there is a huge opportunity for Democrats to make a comeback in rural Oregon/rural America.

All they have to do is to do what they say they will do.

If in fact the Democrats head off the second great depression, and by the time of the 2012 election the economy is hiring back all the laid off people, and if we get infrastructure improvements including alternative power sources - just those two things - then the Democrats will make a great deal of progress in rural Oregon.

The "old" game in rural American has been to blame the Democrats for everything. Due to the Democratic Party not paying attention to rural media, not hearing it through the din of urban media, all those thousands of times that the Republicans blamed Democrats were never really exposed to the urban areas. Who reads the Sagebrush news in Portland? But the "new" game is that the native conservatism and just plain doubt that rural people have is now being turned on the Republicans.

They told rural people that you could cut and cut State and Federal budgets, and all that you'd ever cut is waste. Now that services are in the toilet, now that the school year is cut by what is approaching a month and the football team has to hold a bake sale to even have a team, now that medical costs (if you can even find a Doctor or clinic to take you) are through the roof, and now that people have a clue that most tax cuts are for the wealthy - the Republican are losing credibility fast.

People aren't stupid in rural areas, and they aren't uninformed. They just get a lot of wrong information that is out of balance.

The best line of the last 3 months, was Barney Frank on one of the Sunday morning shows saying, "you can't build a bridge with a tax cut." I have heard that line repeated a few hundred times out here in Central Oregon. It is just the sort of pragmatic statement that resonates with people closer to the land.

All the Democrats need to do now, is to "perform". If life changes to the better, the Republicans can try all they want to to blame Democrats for that, and we will just smile and take it.

But the Communists on Wall Street really ARE to blame.

"Actually, one has to feel sorry for these poor bamboozled rubes who derive all their "information" about the world from Rush, Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly, Coulter and Mike the Savage Weiner."

Wow. That is an elitist statement if I ever heard one. Speaking as a woman from a small town, now living in Portland, I can say that people in smaller towns and cities are not any less intelligent than people in the big city. You can argue that people in big cities have more education, but trust me, having attended law school, I know that education is not what makes a person informed, smart, or wise. People on both sides of the fence gather their information and opinions from inadequate sources.

There are also well informed people on both the left and right. Ultimately, those individuals disagree because of the fundamental principles that inform their opinions.

It might feel good to you to lump together everyone who disagrees with you as "bamboozled rubes" but it is exactly that kind of arrogance that frustrates and marginalizes individuals from rural areas.

It's pretty par-for-the-course around here, Christy.

Sure, there's a lot of populist anger, but most of it is of the sort that Sarah Palin whipped up last year, which prompts letters to the editor ranting about Obama as a Socialist (the nice ones), a Communist, and often in the same letter, a Wall Street tool. This is not a particularly thoughtful mob.

Calling Obama socialist or communist is nonsense, but I'll go along with "Wall Street tool." Can't say I blame him in one way when he sees how much Wall Street has paid his economic advisers - Rubin and Summers. What was it Summers was paid by Wall Street last year? $8 million? That could help explain why he is taking care of the banks. Then there are the millions in donations from Wall Street to Obama's campaign to "persuade" Obama to think kindly of those poor bankers. These donations seem to be paying off and trumping the millions "the people" chipped in in their innocence.

Well, I'm surprised and pleased that my column got a lot of response...but I do want to clarify a couple of things. I wasn't trying to characterize everybody in any particular place...only describing my observations of a couple of segments of the populace. I know people out here who are radical lefties, radical righties, and midroaders...and there are thoughtful people and idiots in all 3 groups...and, in general, many in these otherwise disparate groups get along with each other and have real friendships. And, for SCB..."hinterlands" isn't a disparaging term...and perhaps I should have mentioned that the hinterlands and the attitudes I'm discussing begin a lot closer to the blue cities than most progressives think.

This was a good column/thread; hope you do more here.

The reprehensible right are the true lefties' fault. Not orgininally, but now they are. Look at the horror generated with the stupid rhetoric that you all quote. You know what they need, we would enjoy, and BHO would benefit from? A real, solid leftist voice or two!

They can believe all those things about BHO because they don't know what real ones look like. It's like med students thinking they have everything they read about, until the meet one in the flesh. If corporate interests didn't rule the airwaves, they would be under absolutely no illusion that BHO is a communist.

Actually, I'll have a go at this. OK, now, this is for any reprehensibles reading. You're all hepped up about BHO taking away your guns, right? I seriously think you are incapable of making the right decisions for your children, and I would like to take them away at birth. THAT'S far left. Doesn't look a thing like BHO, does it?

But this is the United States and my speach is crazy, so you have to shoehorn all the rest into a narrow bandwidth. Your censorship of everything that you don't like the sound of is why you have a right wing kakaphony. The masses want to hear more; they know it's sterilized. Corporate interests only will allow anything off the mean if it suits them. Hence, the only "interesting" talk, comes from the far right. It's a symptom of living in a country where the union of corporate interests and the government is the only "more perfect union" addressed pursued by government.

People buy a .22 for target practice or killing little varmits. Your whole conclusion is based on stupid logic.

If you want to protect your family or start a revolution, you buy an AR15 or a surplus Checosolavakian made AK47 with a 100 round 7.62 drum clip.

Your such an ameture. For the love of Pete!

I am sending used Tea bags!

What would you use a .22 for in a revolution? Everyone is going to be a sniper? That WOULD be typically American. Chickenshit courage.

Buy a 30/30 . BTW, you know that's why hard drives used to be called "Winchesters"? Original IBM hard drive had something like 30 sectors and 30 cylinders and was sold as the 30/30.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWeZ5SKXvj8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=angbZB2WeMQ

Thanks for that link Stephan. That should be required listening.

Well, at least in my part of the "hinterlands" more folks are, or becoming "unaffiliated" because of partisan politics. We look at the "my way or the highway" attitudes as counter productive and the cause of our countries ails.

Our area is an eclectic mix ranging from extreme right "Appalachia" to way left "ultra greenies". Surprisingly we live in fairly good harmony, having meaningful and informed debates about our varying viewpoints. the main thing we are all interested in is "fixing the broken wagon" so that it can be a useful tool that moves us to the desired destination.

That means looking at our economy, natural resources, environment and the tools available in our box realistically and coming to a compromised solution to fixing the problem.

Our main problems stem from outside, uninformed meddling and "highway robbers" that steal the tools out of our bag and then dictate how we should "fix the wagon".

Some more Reagan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqAgmrSimx4

Ron Paul

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5LSyFemj4c

If you want to protect your family or start a revolution, you buy an AR15 or a surplus Checosolavakian made AK47 with a 100 round 7.62 drum clip.

Armed revolutions in many cases lead to replacing one evil with another. What this nation needs is a revolution that wakes the people up so they know what is really going on instead of believing the bullshit propagated by right-wing hate radio, Faux News and most of the corporate media. It's 'way past time for the American people to reclaim their independence by thinking independently instead of going along with their Democratic, Republican and other tribal propaganda machines.

As for an armed revolution in the United States, this is a joke when you can't get most of the people to think beyond what they read on bumper stickers or throwaway lines from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Or get them off their bloated asses to vote. Lead the charge with your "Checosolavakian made AK47 with a 100 round 7.62 drum clip" but don't be surprised a mile or two along the way to Washington, DC if you look over your shoulder and find no one following.

As for "Checosolavakian" made weapons I don't know where you will find such equipment. There is no such place as "Checosolavakia" or "Checosolavakian" people. Presumably, the author of this illiteracy was referring to the country of Czechoslovakia that split in 1992 into the present Czech and Slovakian republics.

Please , dear God, or dear Kari, put us out of Stephan Andrew Brodhead's misery.

Mr Bodden--Brodhead has one or two misspelled words and grammatical errors in practically every sentence he writes. "Checoslovakia" is a trivial bit of his illiteracy and ignorance.

Let's list some of Brodhead's obvious qualifications:

--historical ignorance --inability to spell or to write a coherent paragraph --broad lack of curiosity about the world --America-love-it-or-leave-it mentality --gun fetish

This short list makes me wonder if Stephan Andrew Brodhead is the pseudonym that George W. Bush uses for Internet posting.

Bill Bodden: What this nation needs is a revolution that wakes the people up so they know what is really going on instead of believing the bullshit propagated by right-wing hate radio, Faux News and most of the corporate media.

Kurt Chapman: OK Bill, I'll chuck Fox News as soon as we agree that Olberman, Maddow, et. al at MSNBC are equally partisan. You can throw in some of the shills on Portlan and Eugene progressive radio as well.

OR, you could be more like some of us who already started thinking for themselves years ago. watch and listen to a variety of news sources (especially the ones you don't like) and form your own opinion. Persnoally I love to balance O'Reilly out with Maddow and throw in a little Cooper.

Kurt Chapman: OK Bill, I'll chuck Fox News as soon as we agree that Olberman, Maddow, et. al at MSNBC are equally partisan. You can throw in some of the shills on Portlan and Eugene progressive radio as well.

OK, Kurt. Chuck Faux News in the trash can where it deserves to be. Anyone making political commentary is partisan in one way or the other. The question then becomes does such partisanship provide a benefit to society or is it detrimental. In the case of the likes of the Faux News stable, beside being divisive and disruptive to society they are almost always an insult to an independent thinker's intelligence. Media Matters and Think Progress are continually finding distortions that come out of the mouths of the likes of O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter and their ilk.

I'm not that thrilled with Maddow, but I have to give Olbermann credit for saying some things that went against the neocon and apparently prevailing grain and needed to be said. But I don't agree with him on every issue. For a while he was letting Obama get away with some stuff he should have been called on, and if you noticed my first comment on this thread was critical of Obama. And if you have paid attention to earlier comments I have made you'll find I have been very critical of the Democratic Party. My opinion of that organization is almost as negative as my opinion of their partners in our national duopoly - the Republicans.

Posted by: joel dan walls | Apr 11, 2009 4:04:23 PM

Please , dear God, or dear Kari, put us out of Stephan Andrew Brodhead's misery.

I'm sure hearing 4 year olds practice their alphabet is irritating to 7 year olds, but those that have matured appreciate that one's progress might be greater than the other's, and be tolerable on those grounds.

There's a gray line between being a spelling Nazi, engaging in ad hominem arguments, and demonstrating that something is comment spam. Why does it matter if you spell the name of a no longer existing country wrong? Let's stick to "do you know it doesn't exist". That should be humiliating enough. The content matters, and I've not seen where one exists in spite of a lack of the other.

SAB, have you notice that the shorter your comments the more responses you get? Perhaps that is a compromise that all can live with, the principle of "pith". If you keep it pithy, you won't get treated like spam. Deal?

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