Bellatrys makes a long, rambling post that is about a hundred times as furious as anything I could ever imagine. The evil, pernicious myth that
the American poor are fine because they have color TVs takes a beating. (I didn't even mention the people who
can't afford the TVs, but she does.) In her anger, she lumps a lot of people together and excoriates many who are trying to do good; but I think there's considerable wisdom in there, even though I'm squarely in the population she spends most of her time excoriating.
Among other things, she explains why it irritates me when people joke about seceding from the dumb crackers in Jesusland. The American South, white and black, is
poor; it's a Third World country, as are other parts of the US. I lived in the absolute richest part of the boundary of the South for a while, and you could see the poverty
there. There's a reactionary rich elite, especially in the cities, but, guess what, you see that in poor countries too.
The patriarchal, hierarchical values that liberals like me complain about are characteristic of poor countries the world over. We have so much cultural reaction in the US
because we don't have a social safety net worth speaking of. (Western Europeans and Canadians have an especially hard time understanding this because not having a real social safety net is so far beyond their experience.)
( If I may step back, be effete Mr. Analytic, and promote my pet crackpot hypothesis here: ) 
