Pennsylvania seems to breed all kinds of ppl

[The Jay]

What is it about pa that causes so many to join either really right groups or really left ones? I can see how many people on this site are from here but I also know how many religious pseudo-fascists are running around in pensyltucky. Are other states like this?

[graymouser]

Uneven development, I suppose. In the Philly left we sometimes talk about Pennsylvania as being Philly and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between. A huge backward area in the middle of the state can create that.

[The Jay]

I suppose that I'd be considered a part of the inactive philly left. Is there a strong pro-active presence in Philly?

[Fopeos]

As a Pennsyltuckian, i've asked the same question. I think it's just part of the history of the state. We have a long history of radical labor in the N.East and S.west coal regions, and we've got the more conservative, rural farm land in the middle. No one ever seems content with either bourgeois party. Personally, I think it'd be a great place to start a revolution.(i guess George Washington and his holmies did too)

[graymouser]

I suppose that I'd be considered a part of the inactive philly left. Is there a strong pro-active presence in Philly?
I wouldn't say strong. I mean, it's better than some cities, but it's not a thriving left presence; there are a bunch of anarchists, some Trotskyists, some Marcyites, some black nationalists, a couple of social democrats. I work mostly around Philly Against War (see the last link in my profile for a description of our next big event) which is a coalition involving various antiwar activists. There are demonstrations and periodic events, but the audiences are mostly small.

[The Jay]

I thought that pa's angry people were concentrated around philly. I guess we're just one big state of fury.:cool:

[The Jay]

It sounds like a good time. What'll the cultural fair be about?

[Commissar Rykov]

I know Scumfronters have been migrating to the PA. Why? I haven't a clue I do know that a lot of Klan types found themselves outdated in the Urban South and thus migrated to the Rural parts of PA. I don't understand I just know they have been encouraging moving to the area similar to the Cascade Region in the Northwest.

[MattShizzle]

Yeah, the area around here is pretty religious and conservative but not as much as the really rural areas or especially Schuylkill County and around Allentown. I've heard the saying before about Philly and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between. Scuylkill Co and Allentown are in the news every so often due to hate groups/hate crimes - including a couple years ago some teens who beat an illegal Mexican immigrant to death and got off on minor convictions because the local police helped cover it up. They ended up getting convicted of civil rights charges and the majority of the police force in that town (Shenandoah) - including the chief have been arrested for either that or extorting money from drug dealers

[The Jay]

Matt, that's the pa i've come to expect, but did you notice how many revlefters are located here?

[MattShizzle]

Maybe because we mostly see reactionaries in everyday life those of us from this state look online for like thinking people?

[graymouser]

It sounds like a good time. What'll the cultural fair be about?
The event is themed around "No to the wars at home! No to the wars abroad!" so it's a fairly broad deal, there's going to be antiwar reggae, Cuban music, protest singers, spoken word, dancing, as well as speeches. We're trying to tie together the themes of the wars on working and oppressed people here in the US with the wars in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, so there is a sort of broad "topic" that we are really covering.

RevLeft folks are encouraged to come out! A good bit of the Philly left will be there.

[#FF0000]

PA's a huge place. That's why there's so many revlefters hahaha. Me and some of the other PA locals have been discussing a meetup but we quickly found everyone was hours away from each other.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Yea, people here in NYC sometimes suggest taking a road trip to see where I used to live in PA. When they realize it's a 7 hour trip from the city, instead of the 1.5 hour it takes to get to the Poconos, they usually change their mind.

The T is well known. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsyltucky

It's not a coincidence that the most rural parts of the state are also the most reactionary. The areas around Pittsburgh and Philly are/were industrial centers. The rest of the state is/was farming based or desolate.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9d/Pennsylvania_population_map.png

Of course Southwestern PA is pretty rural when compared to other major metropolitan areas in the country. I think the difference come out of the socialized work centers. Compare the guy who lives in an old farm house on 85 acres that never leaves his little home area to the guy who lives in an old farm house on 85 acres but goes to work with hundreds or thousands of other similar people at the mine, factory, etc., each day (and yes we still have a good number).

PA is a diverse place. The western part of the state is entirely different from the eastern part. Different dialects, foods, etc. Keep in mind that the histories are very different, and there is a massive mountain range dividing the state in two. Most of the state is in Appalachia. The area around Philly is not.

Southwestern PA is a lot more like West Virginia that Philly and its environs. There were actually proposals to make them both parts of the same state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westsylvania

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Westsylvaniamap.png

While the area around Philly has been a major center since the days of the colonies, the rest of the state was more frontier. It was on the edge, "gateway to the west," with more farms, forts, outposts, rugged individualism, hunting, trapping, etc. To this day Pennsylvania has the highest number of deer hunters in the country (to the point that we always got the first day of the season off at school) and the highest number of members of gun rights groups, despite being 6th in population.

Even when the heaviest industrialization was going on in the southwestern part of the state, with steel mills and coal mines opening and expanding everywhere, a huge portion of the workers were coming up the hillbilly highway from West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, etc. -- not from the east -- and bringing their culture, history, etc., with them.

And yeah, there are a ton of rightist and racialist groupings in Pennsylvania. Particularly in the very rural, very mountainous, Northeastern corner. Similarly, there are a huge number in Montana.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Appalachian_region_of_United_States.gif

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg281/bobsmith91/pennsylvania-counties_sodapop.jpg

The majority of people in the blue counties say "soda." The majority of folks in red counties say "pop."

[The Jay]

Thanks human, that clears a lot of things up.