Do you know why Robert Byrd gets re-elected every time he goes up in West Virginia? It's becase he's able to bring tremendous amounts of political pork home to a very rural state.

If you think there's a balance between rural and urban interests in this country, you're simply wrong. There is scholarly work after scholarly work that shows that, under our wonderful system, urban interests are underepresented and urban areas don't receive representation in governing bodies proprotional to thier population. They, along with residents of poor rural places like Appalachia, are also are poorest residents and could most benefit from representation and the help that would presumably go long with it. Instead we systematically discriminate against poor areas.

Oh, and on the urban/minority difference--you're damn rght I'm using them in a similar fashion. Whether or not you know it, so are you. How many white kids you know live in your closest ghetto? Race, class, and regionalism are all tied up into one ugly thing in this country, keeping those who are nonwhite, poor, and urban in a shitload of trouble. When you celebrate the vote of rural areas, you're celebrating the system that keeps these people down. Deal with it.

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bshelly: practicing a gradual withdraw since June 2000

"You won't see me, you won't SEEEEE me." --Dinosaur Jr.