Don't Mess with Hillbillies
I’ve started reading Gwynne Dyer’s “Future:Tense.” Not far into it I was reminded of my “Hillbilly” theory.
My mom was born and raised in Chillicothe, Ohio, a working class town which, in the time of her youth – even more than now – the elite would have characterized as made up of hillbillies. My father was born and raised in Kendalville, Indiana; and the elite might have characterized his home town as being even more backward than Chillicothe.
I say this to let you know I identify with and respect “hillbillies,” a type of individual some may look down upon.
In any case, I went on record - before the war began - saying that Bush & Co. were wrong to invade Iraq, that they couldn’t win, and that they thought they COULD win only because they didn’t understand hillbillies (how could they, blinded by the reflection of the silver spoons in their mouths?).
Hillbillies have been looked down upon for a LONG time. They are not well-educated or cosmopolitan, have very little in this “ownership” society, barely get by, and have been getting barely by for a long time. They don’t complain much about that, although they may love Jesus and be less than kindly oriented toward minorities, gays, Catholics, “uppity women,” and “Liberals.” Nevertheless, hillbillies DO have certain, positive characteristics that the elite ignore at their peril.
Hillbillies have pride! They have very little else, and should you threaten THAT, you put your life on the line. “Freedom” ’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” You’d better be serious if you want to mess with a hillbilly’s pride.
Hillbillies have relatives – lots of ‘em. And none of them have EVER been treated properly, and all of them have LIVED with that and, nevertheless, STILL have never fucked with anyone - outside the “holler.” Now YOU want to destroy the “nuthin” that they have and cherish.
You are looking for trouble, and you are going to get it, and you are going to lose. You can’t kill enough hillbillies to convince the survivors to give up the only thing they’ve ever had. Every one you kill has a hundred relatives who KNOW what you did to Jed and what you want to do to them; and, “By God!” that’s only going to happen over their dead bodies! And those bodies will present themselves for destruction MUCH longer than you can stomach the presentation and ignore your personal cost.
The difference is that THEY are men and women who are not willing to live without self respect. THEY will die before they will knuckle under to your fantasy of self-serving domination. They HAVE no material future; they have only their self-respect; and they’ll die – almost every last one of them – to stop YOU from taking that just to add a nickel to your pile of wealth!
Bush can’t win fucking with Arab hillbillies - he won't even get their oil.
Here’s how Gwynne Dyer put it:
“In anti-colonial guerrilla wars, the locals always win. The Dutch learned that lesson in Indonesia, the French in Viet Nam and Algeria, the British in Kenya and Cypress, and the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique. The United States went through the same learning process in Viet Nam, and the Russians in Afghanistan. It’s all about how much time and how many lives the two sides are willing to spend on the issue. The fighting might go on for years, the better-equipped foreigners will win almost all the battles, and ten or twenty guerrillas may die for each foreign soldier, but there is an endless supply of locals and very little patience for a long war with high casualties back in the foreigners’ home country. In the end the foreigners invariably succumb to the temptation to cut their losses and go home, because otherwise there will be no end; the guerrillas are never going to quit and go home, because they already are home. And it makes no difference how noble the foreigners think their motives are; only the opinion of the locals counts.
Almost all of America’s friends and allies in the world understand this, which is why they have been trying to make it easy for the United States to get out of Iraq quickly without losing too much face. That was the purpose of the Security Council resolution in June 2004 that retrospectively cast a cloak of legitimacy over the U,S. presence in Iraq and the puppet regime it was installing there. French president Jacques Chirac, as blunt as ever, called it ‘an exit strategy from a crisis,’ but he supported it too.
Nobody was willing to send more troops into the Iraq cauldron or to bless the occupation as a UN operation – the whole point of the exercise was to get the U.S. troops out – but they were all willing to indulge in a little hypocrisy if it would speed American troops on their way. They were well aware that chaos might reign in Iraq afterwards, but Iraq was in chaos already. The priority for the whole world was to get the U.S. defeat in Iraq over with and forgotten as soon as possible and with the least possible damage to American self-esteem, rather than submit to the inevitability of a long, bitter, losing guerrilla war that would set the United States against the rest of the world, feed Islamist extremism, and undermine the whole project for great-power collaboration in the service of peace.”
So, what's the point?
Don’t fuck with hillbillies. They don’t have anything to begin with - except their lives and their honor. You mess with that, Mr. Powerboy “Spread Democracy & Freedom” Entrepreneur, and you’ll end up being sorry, and you’ll never hear the end of it. We won't let you.
- Uke Man
My mom was born and raised in Chillicothe, Ohio, a working class town which, in the time of her youth – even more than now – the elite would have characterized as made up of hillbillies. My father was born and raised in Kendalville, Indiana; and the elite might have characterized his home town as being even more backward than Chillicothe.
I say this to let you know I identify with and respect “hillbillies,” a type of individual some may look down upon.
In any case, I went on record - before the war began - saying that Bush & Co. were wrong to invade Iraq, that they couldn’t win, and that they thought they COULD win only because they didn’t understand hillbillies (how could they, blinded by the reflection of the silver spoons in their mouths?).
Hillbillies have been looked down upon for a LONG time. They are not well-educated or cosmopolitan, have very little in this “ownership” society, barely get by, and have been getting barely by for a long time. They don’t complain much about that, although they may love Jesus and be less than kindly oriented toward minorities, gays, Catholics, “uppity women,” and “Liberals.” Nevertheless, hillbillies DO have certain, positive characteristics that the elite ignore at their peril.
Hillbillies have pride! They have very little else, and should you threaten THAT, you put your life on the line. “Freedom” ’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” You’d better be serious if you want to mess with a hillbilly’s pride.
Hillbillies have relatives – lots of ‘em. And none of them have EVER been treated properly, and all of them have LIVED with that and, nevertheless, STILL have never fucked with anyone - outside the “holler.” Now YOU want to destroy the “nuthin” that they have and cherish.
You are looking for trouble, and you are going to get it, and you are going to lose. You can’t kill enough hillbillies to convince the survivors to give up the only thing they’ve ever had. Every one you kill has a hundred relatives who KNOW what you did to Jed and what you want to do to them; and, “By God!” that’s only going to happen over their dead bodies! And those bodies will present themselves for destruction MUCH longer than you can stomach the presentation and ignore your personal cost.
The difference is that THEY are men and women who are not willing to live without self respect. THEY will die before they will knuckle under to your fantasy of self-serving domination. They HAVE no material future; they have only their self-respect; and they’ll die – almost every last one of them – to stop YOU from taking that just to add a nickel to your pile of wealth!
Bush can’t win fucking with Arab hillbillies - he won't even get their oil.
Here’s how Gwynne Dyer put it:
“In anti-colonial guerrilla wars, the locals always win. The Dutch learned that lesson in Indonesia, the French in Viet Nam and Algeria, the British in Kenya and Cypress, and the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique. The United States went through the same learning process in Viet Nam, and the Russians in Afghanistan. It’s all about how much time and how many lives the two sides are willing to spend on the issue. The fighting might go on for years, the better-equipped foreigners will win almost all the battles, and ten or twenty guerrillas may die for each foreign soldier, but there is an endless supply of locals and very little patience for a long war with high casualties back in the foreigners’ home country. In the end the foreigners invariably succumb to the temptation to cut their losses and go home, because otherwise there will be no end; the guerrillas are never going to quit and go home, because they already are home. And it makes no difference how noble the foreigners think their motives are; only the opinion of the locals counts.
Almost all of America’s friends and allies in the world understand this, which is why they have been trying to make it easy for the United States to get out of Iraq quickly without losing too much face. That was the purpose of the Security Council resolution in June 2004 that retrospectively cast a cloak of legitimacy over the U,S. presence in Iraq and the puppet regime it was installing there. French president Jacques Chirac, as blunt as ever, called it ‘an exit strategy from a crisis,’ but he supported it too.
Nobody was willing to send more troops into the Iraq cauldron or to bless the occupation as a UN operation – the whole point of the exercise was to get the U.S. troops out – but they were all willing to indulge in a little hypocrisy if it would speed American troops on their way. They were well aware that chaos might reign in Iraq afterwards, but Iraq was in chaos already. The priority for the whole world was to get the U.S. defeat in Iraq over with and forgotten as soon as possible and with the least possible damage to American self-esteem, rather than submit to the inevitability of a long, bitter, losing guerrilla war that would set the United States against the rest of the world, feed Islamist extremism, and undermine the whole project for great-power collaboration in the service of peace.”
So, what's the point?
Don’t fuck with hillbillies. They don’t have anything to begin with - except their lives and their honor. You mess with that, Mr. Powerboy “Spread Democracy & Freedom” Entrepreneur, and you’ll end up being sorry, and you’ll never hear the end of it. We won't let you.
- Uke Man
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