Is progressive Asheville Obama’s vision for America?
Pepe Silvia
Posts: 3,758
of course we rock!!
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/T ... or-America
Is progressive Asheville Obama’s vision for America?
Hip, environmentally aware, self-reliant and undeniably quaint, Asheville, N.C is a progressive’s vision of what America could be. But mountain liberalism comes at a price
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama meet other hikers while walking along a trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway outside of Asheville, N.C., Friday.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
Okay, maybe the Obamas’ Asheville, N.C., trip is just a romantic getaway and a chance to grab some 12 Bones BBQ, as the White House suggests.
But you know something is going on when even the local “tea party” affiliate welcomes Obama to their “mountain paradise.”
Critics like Hoover Institution fellow Shelby Steele have complained that Obama’s “ultimate vision, he has not been very clear about.”
So given that the Obama’s “kind of fell in love” with the Buncombe County burg during a debate prep visit during the 2008 campaign, could Asheville itself be a clue to what the President is thinking when he talks about “transforming” America?
'Hillbilly-hippies'
Founded as a health resort, the little city of “hillbilly-hippies,” entrepreneurs, musicians, retirees, and community drum circles is, indeed, a progressive’s vision of America.
Nestled in the oldest hills on earth, Asheville (pop. 70,000), the first East Coast city to require sustainable green construction, is a sort of experiment in environmentalism that has made the city the gateway to the new Appalachia and gotten it listed both as one of America’s “happiest places” and as one of the “best places to reinvent your life.”
But it also represents conservative fears about what President’s intentions might wreak: A dearth of high-paying jobs, relatively high taxes, large numbers of homeless and other wards of the state, a high crime rate, and a progressive ruling class perhaps more interested in maintaining quaintness than thickening residents’ wallets.
“At least as far back as the arrival of the Vanderbilts, it has been a haven for artists, innovative types, sophisticated thinkers, and people who want a little something more out of life than the average,” writes former resident Thomas Osborne on City-Data.com. “Asheville is cultured and educated, perhaps more like a New England town, but amazingly friendly and polite, like a piece of decent southern aristocracy.”
To be sure, the visit also fits into Obama’s “White House to Main Street” program, where he will travel next week to the struggling small towns of the Midwest who first gave him real traction in the 2008 campaign.
'A guy like the rest of us'
And compared to other presidential vacations to tony Martha’s Vineyard, this trip represents a “middle class” vacation to portray Obama as what Dolly Jenkins-Mullen of the University of North Carolina calls “a guy like the rest of us” as Congress ponders a crackdown on Wall Street.
Politically, the visit – the President’s fourth to North Carolina – also could be a signal, writes Politico, that his popularity in North Carolina, a state he stole from the Republicans in 2008, is turning as Democratic support fractures.
But if Asheville is indeed an Obama vision for America, there’s a stark lesson about the impact of soaring debt in hard times to glean from the city, as well.
The city’s success today – embodied by its rich catalog of Art Deco buildings – came at a price.
As a result of the 1920s building spree, Asheville “entered the Depression with the highest per capita debt in the country,” writes New Hampshire native Terry Pindell in “A Good Place to Live.”
“All across America, governments declared bankruptcy, further contributing … to the national depression. But Ashevillians’ stubborn mountain pride led them to choose a different path [which] made Asheville what it is today. They created a sinking fund to pay off every cent of the debt, no matter how long it took. [T]he debt wasn’t retired until 1977. For forty years Asheville lay in an economic cocoon – a long sleep.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/T ... or-America
Is progressive Asheville Obama’s vision for America?
Hip, environmentally aware, self-reliant and undeniably quaint, Asheville, N.C is a progressive’s vision of what America could be. But mountain liberalism comes at a price
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama meet other hikers while walking along a trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway outside of Asheville, N.C., Friday.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
Okay, maybe the Obamas’ Asheville, N.C., trip is just a romantic getaway and a chance to grab some 12 Bones BBQ, as the White House suggests.
But you know something is going on when even the local “tea party” affiliate welcomes Obama to their “mountain paradise.”
Critics like Hoover Institution fellow Shelby Steele have complained that Obama’s “ultimate vision, he has not been very clear about.”
So given that the Obama’s “kind of fell in love” with the Buncombe County burg during a debate prep visit during the 2008 campaign, could Asheville itself be a clue to what the President is thinking when he talks about “transforming” America?
'Hillbilly-hippies'
Founded as a health resort, the little city of “hillbilly-hippies,” entrepreneurs, musicians, retirees, and community drum circles is, indeed, a progressive’s vision of America.
Nestled in the oldest hills on earth, Asheville (pop. 70,000), the first East Coast city to require sustainable green construction, is a sort of experiment in environmentalism that has made the city the gateway to the new Appalachia and gotten it listed both as one of America’s “happiest places” and as one of the “best places to reinvent your life.”
But it also represents conservative fears about what President’s intentions might wreak: A dearth of high-paying jobs, relatively high taxes, large numbers of homeless and other wards of the state, a high crime rate, and a progressive ruling class perhaps more interested in maintaining quaintness than thickening residents’ wallets.
“At least as far back as the arrival of the Vanderbilts, it has been a haven for artists, innovative types, sophisticated thinkers, and people who want a little something more out of life than the average,” writes former resident Thomas Osborne on City-Data.com. “Asheville is cultured and educated, perhaps more like a New England town, but amazingly friendly and polite, like a piece of decent southern aristocracy.”
To be sure, the visit also fits into Obama’s “White House to Main Street” program, where he will travel next week to the struggling small towns of the Midwest who first gave him real traction in the 2008 campaign.
'A guy like the rest of us'
And compared to other presidential vacations to tony Martha’s Vineyard, this trip represents a “middle class” vacation to portray Obama as what Dolly Jenkins-Mullen of the University of North Carolina calls “a guy like the rest of us” as Congress ponders a crackdown on Wall Street.
Politically, the visit – the President’s fourth to North Carolina – also could be a signal, writes Politico, that his popularity in North Carolina, a state he stole from the Republicans in 2008, is turning as Democratic support fractures.
But if Asheville is indeed an Obama vision for America, there’s a stark lesson about the impact of soaring debt in hard times to glean from the city, as well.
The city’s success today – embodied by its rich catalog of Art Deco buildings – came at a price.
As a result of the 1920s building spree, Asheville “entered the Depression with the highest per capita debt in the country,” writes New Hampshire native Terry Pindell in “A Good Place to Live.”
“All across America, governments declared bankruptcy, further contributing … to the national depression. But Ashevillians’ stubborn mountain pride led them to choose a different path [which] made Asheville what it is today. They created a sinking fund to pay off every cent of the debt, no matter how long it took. [T]he debt wasn’t retired until 1977. For forty years Asheville lay in an economic cocoon – a long sleep.”
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
say it aint so....
"With our thoughts we make the world"
its hard to even reason with that viewpoint. calling obama a socialist. the guy is a capitalist. his campaign was funded by big buisness. he certainly hasnt come out and said anything even resembling a critique on corporate america because he knows what side his bread is buttered on.
i know ... it's what is so laughable when you hear conservatives call him that ... it just goes to show that they really have no clue what they are talking about and are just regurgitating what is fed to them by their right-wing media outlets ...
edit: Asheville does indeed rock
with all due respect
It does indeed rock and has one of the best small venue for concerts The Orange Peel. You could even bump into the President on a hike there too...
Westerville Woman Meets Obama On The Hiking Trail
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
not only were we the first city on the east coast to require green building supplies but the downtown area has a no chain stores policy (though, there is a ten thousand villages), the city government uses natural gas and biofueled vehicles, they get a lot of their electricity for government buildings and libraries from solar power....we have a nice little bubble in a beautiful region
the orange peel does get a lot of great shows but i've also seen a lot of good shows at the thomas wolfe auditorium not even a mile from the orange peel. i've seen the strokes, decemberists, ani difranco (though, for the past few years she plays 2 shows at the orange peel each tour)....there and right next to that is the civic center where pearl jam played on the vfc tour and where the warren haynes xmas jam is each year (proceeds going to habitat for humanity) and there's several smaller venues (seeing a silver mt zion next month!) as well as some music festivals like transfigurations, all go west, the bele chere festival has 4 stages (cracker played there last year) and downtown after 5 (1 week a month a block downtown is closed off and bands play and beer and food is sold), the drive-by truckers played a free show outside a record store in town on record store day.....there's even a drum circle every friday downtown
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'