Gone With The Wind

For a long time, this was the most successful of all movies.  It may still be, but there have been many other very big films in recent years.  Thus, it may not be seen as all that important now, as it once was.

Which is interesting, in a way.  The movie's setting was the South at the time of the Civil War. ( just in case you didn't know)  By the way, I am mentioning this because I watched the flick again just the other night, and something about it has been sticking in my mind since.

I've mentioned this phenomenon recently.  It does have some connection to a theme in the movie, which is class distinctions.  The Old South was heavily influenced by such notions as class distinctions- such as slaves, white trash, ladies and gentleman.  This is class distinctions between the lowest status class, the slaves, the mass of white folks who weren't slaves, but not rich, and then the aristocracy- ladies and gentlemen.  A lot of this story revolved around these class distinctions and how they gave way-Gone With The Wind- when the South lost the war.

Class distinctions are still with us, apparently.  I can still remember about a dozen years ago now with respect to the Paula Jones-Bill Clinton scandal.  There was talk back then of "trailer park trash", and how pejorative a term that was, and why it was supposed to discredit what was being said from the mere fact of who was saying it.  A class distinction, that.

Well, it sure seems like people never learn.  More than a century after a war that was all about class distinctions, here was some folks in government who felt it necessary to use this supposedly outmoded way of thinking.

I look at that, and then I look at this blog here, and myself.  Some people might look at me and say "dumb redneck".  In fact, you can go to my reviews on Amazon, read through some of the comments there, and find that pejorative label attached to me.  Some hi falooting types think that, just because I am not rich, and not born into wealth, that I must be stupid; and therefore, not worth paying any attention to.

I point to what happened to the South and how it might well happen again.  There was this saying.  Learn from history, or you are doomed to repeat it.  A lot of what is happening in this country right now comes from the high falooting types who don't think they have to listen to the folks back home.  That's how we get trillion dollar deficits.  They think they are so smart that they don't have to listen.  Then, they go mess things up really badly, and because of that, they will suffer, and cause others to suffer.

Is that an accurate analogy?  Could be.