Rating: 
Summary: There's nothing new here...
Review: Michael Graham - a radio talk-show host and former PR guy for the Republican Party - obviously wants to follow in the footsteps of HL Mencken, Dennis Miller, and Michael Moore as an acid-penned critic of "redneck" Southern culture. Like these gentlemen, Graham seems to believe that if you can't say something nasty about other people, then you shouldn't say anything at all. Graham grew up in a tiny rural village in South Carolina and, to put it politely, he hated it. This book is filled with every imaginable put-down of white, native-born Southerners. If you read this book you'll get the impression that Southern culture is responsible for everything from the Bubonic Plague to crabgrass in your lawn. And, most of Graham's comments contain nothing that most Southerners (and non-Southerners) haven't heard before - Southerners are still refighting the Civil War, they're racist and inbred, they don't like "book learnin" and despise intellectuals, etc. Graham's one unique twist on this tiresome refrain is that the South's backward, ignorant "redneck" ideas have swept the nation - he's as contemptuous of Northern yuppies and California academics as he is of his native region. According to Graham, the South has "won" the Civil War and Civil Rights battles by successfully exporting its racism, segregation, anti-intellectual beliefs, and "irrational" religious beliefs to the rest of the nation. For proof, he offers examples such as NASCAR (which, Graham announces with horror, is now the top spectator sport in the country), the "politically-correct", anti-free speech mindset at universities such as Cal-Berkeley and "Hahvud", and the growing "I am a victim" mentality among minorities nationwide, which he claims started with white Southerners after their defeat in the Civil War. Graham even sees the victory of "backward" Southern ideals in TV shows such as "Sex and the City", which he claims is basically just the story of Southern-style "trailer trash" women who happen to live in the Big Apple (and dress somewhat better). Some of Graham's schtick is admittedly funny, but there's nothing really new here (If you've seen or read Jeff Foxworthy's "You may be a redneck if..." books or comedy routines, you've seen most of Graham's stereotypes). Graham is also wrong in some of his historical claims - Northern racism wasn't "exported" from the South, but existed long before the Civil War. Bottom line: some of this book is funny, but Graham's endless pages of put-downs (of Southerners AND Northerners) gets repetitive really fast, and he adds very little that's new as the book goes along - it's basically one long, Dennis Miller-style rant on the same subject.
Rating: 
Summary: An Interesting Twist on the Southern Phenomenon
Review: Michael Graham's premise, that many of what were considered uniquely "Southern" characteristics have now permeated American culture, is something I've never stopped to consider before. I haven't finished the book yet, but it's quite interesting and very, very funny. I never thought of it that way before, but he's right!Michael Graham is very irreverent, so I expected him to rake Southerners over the coals, and as a Southerner, I'm used to that anyway. (As a matter of fact, Southerners can insult Southerners better than anyone else. The best anti-Southern jokes are Southern.) Southerners might get their noses bent out of joint if they are hypersensitive, but after reading this book, there will be a lot of bent-nosed Yankees, too. Nothing and no one is safe! I would have given this book 5 stars, but some of his jokes are a little lame. Graham wasn't trying hard enough in some spots. But overall, a great read!
Rating: 
Summary: Soooeeeyyy!!!
Review: Northern Ireland? Think of the old Confederacy prior to the Civil War and during Reconstruction. People from Northern Ireland don't want to be bossed around by some uppity industrialists from the capital who do things a little differently. Northern Ireland will rise again! Afghanistan? Again, the regional problems here are a page out of the southern book of backwardness. In Afghanistan, everybody is loyal to a family clan and a warlord, aka Boss Hogg, settles everything. Switch moonshine with poppy plant production and the difference between Afghans and Appalachian mountain people blurs. Southern notions of nepotism, cronyism, and plantation economics have been successfully exported to this remote region of Asia. Michael Graham thinks that backwardness in every form has emanated from the South. A lot of Southern backwardness has leeched into other areas; however, I don't think the South deserves credit for everything wrong in the world. There were hicks and assanine ways of doing things in the North prior to the Civil War. Really, there are rubes all over the world and there always will be. I found this book to be hilarious and agree with many of his political views. The humor goes beyond self- deprecation. It seemed like there was a lot of self- hatred. Then again, an inferiority complex could be a southern thing. I don't see how he could lump the whole South into one category. I've lived in Virginia, Texas, and Georgia and they are completely different. I do agree with him that the racism in the North is sometimes more insidious than in the South.
Rating:
Summary: Boring liberal bashing political "humor"
Review: Thinking this was going to be southern humor a la (that's French folks) Jeff Foxworthy, with a non-partisan bit of government-ribbing thrown in for flavor and originality, imagine my dissapointment when this just turned into another liberal bashing piece of tripe. If you're a 30 something white male entrepeneur who sits in his garage all day listening to talk radio and believeing it, you'll love this. I however, did not. Good 'ol boy Graham has some shame about being raised in the South. A few months of therapy would probably fix that right up, but that's what liberals do, so instead he has found an external source to blame for his pain: everyone else, particularly Northern liberals. Graham's judgement occured after wide contact with liberals at parties and such where one other guest would confide their secret bigotry, or affection for something southern and low brow. Obviously one can extrapolate then that the whole room is full of closet bigots, and if the whole room is guilty... well, you get the idea. I would have given it one star, except for the fact that Graham does inadvertently touch upon one truth, American culture ain't what it used to be. NASCAR, Fear Factor, etc is evidence of this. I for one, however, would prefer to believe that afficionados of both are mainly right-wing idiots underserved by our education system. Keep 'em dumb and distracted and they'll vote Republican even if it means a decrease in their rights and privilges in the end.
Rating:
Summary: I Laughed, I Cried, I Spit Terbacky Through My Teeth
Review: This here Redneck Nation that Michael Graham done jawed about is purty funny. But iffn I'm ta make sense of this hyar review, I reckon I'd best render this in Ainglish. Lucky fer me I got a trans-lay-ter program.
*Click* There.
Graham's thesis, if this were a dissertation, is that The South, defeated in war, was victorious in its ideas. How so? Traditions emanating from our sweltering swamps have somehow been absorbed by our Northern brethren. Such as the Redneck tradition of victimhood, that is, whining about the consequences of one's own actions, screaming "racism" or "discrimination" for every imagined injustice."
The thesis runs into little buzz-saws of history.
The author took a bus to Oral Roberts University because it presented itself as a place where "reason and deep-seated faith could coexist." Turned out to be otherwise. Surprised? Not me. But I'm astonished the author was. He must have missed the press releases of Oral Roberts himself ascending the Golden Tower (yes, there is such a thing). I guess he couldn't get a bus ticket to some Jesuit institution.
Graham offers the Florida mayor, Carolyn Risher, who signed a proclamation two years ago on city letterhead declaring that Satan was officially banned. Goofy? Sure. Goofy on the level of the Pilgrims who escaped religious persecution for the freedom to practice a little persecution of their own with the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts. There are plenty of other goofisms: American Transcendentalism, Shakers/Quakers, the Oneida community - the first proto-Marxist community, and - Father Divine? Some guy in New York who was actually God. Really. He said so.
What the North lacks in fundamentalist fervor it makes up in exotic lunacy. I recall an opportunity-seeking swami who moved to Oregon and started his own ashram. His followers changed the name of the town to Poona, all under the rubric of democracy. The IRS, however, was less indulgent of his beliefs and confiscated dozens of his colorful Rolls-Royces and sent him packing back to India, which, climate-wise, is a lot like the South. Maybe humidity is the glue of Southern-ness.
The Ku Klux Klan, the only organization that is allowed to be more hated than even the Taliban, reared its ugly head throughout the South, and yet no less than Democratic Senator Robert Byrd was a genuine sheet-wearing member of the brotherhood from West Virginia which was carved out of the Old Dominion because it was stickin' to the Union.
Graham complained about nepotism and left South Carolina for Chicago where he discovered a fundamental difference: "In Chicago, they deliver." Oh, really? Has this guy ever read any columns by the late Chicago columnist Mike Royko?
Finally, is it too much to ask a fellow Southerner to get the contraction of "you all" straight? Graham employs two versions - y'all/ya'll - on two consecutive pages, yet.
For the record, the correct contraction of "you all" is "y'all."
Rating: 
Summary: Redneck Nation is a must read
Review: This is quite possibly one of the best books I have ever read. Graham does a fine job of voicing his political points and keeping people interested, especially with his humor. Everybody, Yankee or Rebel, should read this book!
Rating:
Summary: Redneck Nation is a must read
Review: This is quite possibly one of the best books I have ever read. Graham does a fine job of voicing his political points and keeping people interested, especially with his humor. Everybody, Yankee or Rebel, should read this book!
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