Without Progressive Media, Rural Areas Will Not Move Left
Nashville, IN - The world looks a bit different from here in Brown County. This entirely rural area of southern Indiana has its own subtle pleasures. Beautiful rolling hills studded with cedars, sycamores and poplars. Working farms that dot the landscape- not as large as they get north of here in the plains, but helping feed the nation now as they have done for several generations. The once-famous artists' colony and county seat that is Nashville - a bit touristy these days, yet still sustaining numerous artists, artisans and writers - is close by for those seeking a bit more "culture" than the area's state and national parks provide. Christian churches of all descriptions abound, although one can now find a copy of "The Muslim Hoosier" magazine in the county library ... evidence of changing times ... and that the large university town of Bloomington and the state capital, Indianapolis, are both under an hour away. People here certainly do seem more open and friendly on the surface than people in Boston and environs often are. It's easy enough to while away the hours in pleasant conversation with an interesting cast of local characters. Especially in the spectacular late spring weather we've been enjoying in the last couple of days. So it's hard for a left-wing editor from an urban news publication in the northeast like myself to remember that this is a conservative county in a very conservative state. So much so that my wife's mother says that when you go to vote here the staff just assumes you'll vote Republican.
Of course, people don't usually wear their politics on their sleeve day-to-day. And people are generally nice if you are dealing with them one-on-one, face-to-face, no matter where you are. But it does occur to me that politics ebb and flow everywhere, all the time. A fair number of the ancestors of these rural right-wingers were probably rural left-wingers a century back. The grassroots populist and socialist movements doubtless had many adherants at one time in these hills. The folks hereabouts were no less religious then, but traveling evangelists of the time often preached against the excesses of capitalism as an affront to the moral teachings of Christianity. One would also do well to remember that being a Republican once meant being a member of a radical anti-slavery party - some of whose leadership harbored early socialist ideas. Abraham Lincoln included.
It would take too long to explain what forces helped cause a shift in the politics of rural areas like Brown County. But I think one part of that story is fairly easy to explain. The political left has long since turned its back on giant swaths of the exurban United States. From a certain point of view it can be argued that the grassroots movement to elect Obama made some inroads into areas like this one. But Obama is no left-winger, and his policies are no threat to the corporate elites ripping this country apart. And besides, Presidential races only come once every 4 years. That's not enough time to change hearts and minds - even if there was a genuinely left-wing candidate running for the top office.
To make real strides toward spreading the ideas of the left into places like Brown County will take dozens - if not hundreds - of regional progressive news efforts like Open Media Boston. Plus all kinds of related efforts in all kinds of media formats. That's why we have a little section in our "About Us" page here on this website that invites people interested in starting similar efforts to drop us a line. But being out here makes me think that we're really going to have to redouble our efforts to get other projects like OMB going everywhere we can - especially in the conservative heartland. Because the mounting economic depression is hitting far harder outside the cities than it is in places like Boston. Unemployment is skyrocketing. There's less money - public or otherwise - to spread around. And some of the political leadership these folks have elected is speaking loudly about their desire to refuse to take federal aid from the current administration. No matter how well thought out and how badly needed. Even as people's votes for right-wingers might make sense from a cultural and religious perspective, they make less and less sense from an economic perspective.
Without a constant drumbeat of information from the left, however, areas like Brown County are probably going to keep voting against their own interests on some key issues for a long time to come. Just as religious evangelists found fertile ground here over many decades for their ideas, I can't help but think that progressives would also win a lot of converts if we had more of an immediate presence all over the country. Just some food for thought from an all-too-brief sojourn away from my usual urban bubble. Hopefully we can put some energy into spreading operations like OMB into places like Brown County sooner rather than later (and it should go without saying that I mean no offense to all existing rural progressive media outlets ... we simply need lots more). For now, we've still got a lot to do in Boston. But it won't do to remain complacent and shoot low when the stakes are a better future for America and the planet. Or so it seems as I write this evening from a hotel room in the middle of the forest. I'll save commenting on how many more urban progressive media outlets we need for another day.
Jason Pramas is the Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston.
