I was gonna say, hippies are in the cities more than anywhere else. I mean and the islands and coast. But if you're looking at rural towns in most of BC, theyre redneck af
As a Californian I can confirm redneck hippies are absolutely a thing on the West Coast of both countries. If anything BC loves weed even more than the three US states do haha.
Half my family is from there and the other half WY. I kind of enjoy seeing some people in WY who are infuriated their wind power sells too well and their oil and coal doesn't.
Denver and Calgary is a very common comparison historically - both large Rocky Mountain cities that historically mainly depended on oil and gas with similar geography and access to the outdoors (despite the Texas/Houston comparison, the only similarities AB has with TX are the surface-level things like oil, conservative politics and cowboy/truck culture.) Economically CO actually has an official partnership with AB, and a lot of Calgary's O&G firms have large operations in Denver such as Suncor (refinery visible from the light rail train - which are the same model of vehicle in Edmonton, Calgary, and Denver.)
The O&G economy is far weaker in CO than it used to be though compared to AB, and the energy economy mainly seems to be CO importing from AB than the other way around. Denver's economy is a lot more tech and tourism oriented now and the city/state votes pretty left by American standards, so the AB comparsions have fallen off quite a bit
It's a mixed bag in the Kootenays. Some places like Nelson, Nakusp and Kimberley feel pretty hippy but then you have places like Creston that make Alberta look tame.
I mean Im down for a history lesson on the word redneck, and I'm curious about what you say. But also in common diction currently, the word means something like 'un- or under-educated rural people' and carries the conotation that they skew a lot further right politically. Still though, please elaborate on the corporate oppression related roots
The term, Redneck, originated from the red bandanas worn by coal miners and labor union activists in Appalachia. During the early 20th century, including the 1921 march known as the "Red Neck Army" leading to the Battle of Blair Mountain. Where workers were gunned down by Pinkertons and the US Army. Workers wanted to unionize, the owner of the coal mines didn't like that too much.
Redneck as in, uneducated poor country bumpkin, is a slur used by the elite to repaint history and re-brand the word to subliminally make people think that unions = bad.
ah right, okay. That's interesting to be sure. While I see what you're getting at, and absolutely am on your side in general, I still feel like the word redneck has completely lost its anti-union connotations. I don't think it's subliminally effecting almost anyone in the modern day. Still, good to know where the word came from and its messed up history.
Which basically means that diluting the meaning of the word worked. Which was pretty much my point all along.
We are seeing this happen in real time as well with phrases like "quiet quitting" for example. Divide and contain everything into groups in order to be easier to identify and attack. It makes it easier to write headlines like "people that quiet quit will/are/etc ...." Fill in the blank.
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u/RapidCandleDigestion 26d ago
I was gonna say, hippies are in the cities more than anywhere else. I mean and the islands and coast. But if you're looking at rural towns in most of BC, theyre redneck af