I can answer that

Kung Fu Monkey asks a terrific question as part of a wonderfully inspired rant.

For chrissake, only 17% of Americans live in rural settings anymore. Only 2 million of those people work on farms or ranches (USDA figures). Hell, only ten percent of the average farm family's income even comes from farming anymore (did you know that? I didn't. Funky). The median age of the United States is 37. I am more than willing to point out that the agriculture industry is a crucial, nay vital part of the American economic infrastructure generating a sizable amount of the GDP. But why in the name of John Deere's Blood-Soaked Wood-Chipper Gears, every time I hear a news report on what "real Americans" think do I wind up watching some farmer in their fifties and sixties bitch as they survey the blasted plains landscape behind them, and not only that, somehow their cultural observations are assumed to have more relevance than anyone else's?

Because reporters/editors/news producers are lazy, and don't challenge their assumptions unless required to at gunpoint. Or maybe because they've been creating reality for so long that they feel it's their right to continue to do so. It wouldn't take much to swing this around, frankly--is anyone shocked to learn that twice as many people play World of Warcraft as make a living farming? Seriously? Start pointing that kind of stuff out, and maybe the nation would stop having this ridiculous (I seem to be using that word a lot lately) fascination with the rural life as the bastion of all that is good and holy in the US.

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