Where Left Is Right / The Old Site

Digby (here and here) has turned me on to this project, "Stories in America." In outline, it's the work of Rose Aguilar, an "independent journalist" who left San Francisco to travel around the so-called red states to talk with people of all sorts about politics and the state of the world; the interviews are verbatim transcripts of questions and answers. She also includes lots of photos, not just of the interviewees but of the areas she's visiting.

Here's an excerpt from Aguilar's interview with Jerrie Morales of Tulsa, Oklahoma (that's Morales and two of her children at the right; Aguilar's questions are in italics in the transcript, and here):

What issues interest you?

I want to know how women are dealing with the war. I know what they're showing on TV is just one group of people. They're not showing women like me. Those Iraqi women are like me. They're trying to educate and provide good healthcare for their kids, just like I am. I remember seeing an Iraqi woman whose baby was dying. She tried to throw herself in the grave with the baby. I was there watching it and bawling. I've read things and watched things. I'm interested to know how those women are doing. I also want to know how the Afghani women are doing.

You are one of the few people I've interviewed who have expressed an interest in the Iraqi and Afghani women. I've met a lot of people who say we're freeing the Iraqis one minute and we should kill them the next.

That's a sign of fear. The more the gas prices go up and the more people aren't making enough money and the more they're having problems, the less they're going to care about their fellow men. The average American is stressed out. I try not to let myself go there. I go to work everyday and deal with people who are dying and I know they [Iraqis] are going through the same thing. We're supposed to go after one group of people and we get this lady's four-year-old. That could have been my child. We have our own terrorists here. The first terrorist attack was not on 9/11. We had the KKK. We had terrorism when we gave small pox to the tribes.

[...]

Do you always vote?

Oh yes. I homeschooled my kids to teach them about government and the Founding Fathers and the tribes. I want them to see the truth and think outside the box. Don't ever look at anything as black and white because it never is. My kids were coming home from school saying, 'I'm a Democrat,' 'I'm a Republican,' 'I'm a liberal.' I said, 'You can't be a Republican or a Democrat. You have to be an American.' Don't say you're a Republican until you can find ten things wrong with your party and ten things wrong with Democrats. The Republicans here were trying to pull the churches apart because a lot of Christians are Democrats.

Are you a member of the Democratic or Republican party?

No. When I wrote the Democratic Party and the Republican Party asking them for their platforms, the only thing they sent me was their criticisms against the other party; they wouldn't tell me what they believed in. I'm seeing too many flaws. Things are getting so hectic. There is so much you need to know about.

And the issues people almost always raise during my interviews are gay marriage and abortion.

Oh yeah, because those are smokescreens. Let's use those issues so we can ignore things that really matter.

[...]

How do you feel about abortion?

I think a woman is going to make a decision and we, as women, need to be there to support her. I hate abortion. I hate it. I had to sit through classes about it for nursing. I know that when a woman gets to that place in her life, she ultimately has to make her own decision.

Words fail me. What a great woman; what a great project.