It is on refrigerators throughout the land: the map of California and the West Coast, the upper Midwest and the Northeast annexed to and named “The United States of Canada,” the red states below labeled “Jesusland.” The red-and-blue, them-versus-us iconography so beloved by the press—imposed on us four years ago—makes our divisions seem dramatic indeed. Of course, it visually overstates the… return to article
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Reader Comments (159)Well, there seems to almost be a consensus in these posts regarding Susan’s piece. (Consensus or pack-mentality depending on one’s point of view.) There seems to be an awful lot of crowing from the “Righteous Ones” counting their blessings that some mythical volcano god from the Sinai actually show up to save 60 million government largess leeches from the red side of the tax ledger from having to join the Human race in the 21st Century.
Laugh all you want kids. Health care’s gonna get worse, but you can find a snake-handler to cure you. The deficit will continue to climb, and when it gets really tight, the red states will see their subsidies and farm welfare programs cut. Your children will be marched into heathen lands to die for a lie. (Or is that oil?)
We Progressives will do what was done a century ago and shoot for the grassroots way of making a change. We will write the definitions of the dialog, and then we shall own said dialog.
You psuedo-Dixicrats beware, the end is near. It’ll be nice to groove on the rubble of your twisted and illogical little lives.
Posted by Morwen Madrigal on Nov 30, 2004 at 11:52 PM Grief is a good description of what I’m going through.
However it’s the same grief as 4 years ago, when the election was also close against a middling Republocrat.
So I think the distress voiced in this article and by the left generally is a little overblown: the voters this time around resemble the voters last time around in terms of party loyalties.Kerry simply didn’t give Rs enough reasons to “jump ship,” and Bush was able to keep his base from attriting too much by cutting taxes, scaring the crap out of people, and declaring a religious war.
IOW, there have been no sudden changes in the electorate, so there are no quick fixes.
Posted by trixie on Dec 1, 2004 at 6:07 PM LOL Randolph you know full well what I’m talking about.
Judy said:
“As for who will take care of your daughter, why don’t you sue the people responsible for her condition? If it’s their fault then they should have to compensate.”
If the people responsible for her condition were part of a corporation, then tort reforms would make it less likely they would have to compensate.
Speaking of tort reforms, here’s an excellent article on the hypocrisy of corporations and Republican politicians who nontheless charge “frivolous” lawsuits to protect their own interests:
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/4286
Posted by Ted on Dec 2, 2004 at 6:52 AM I find it stupendous that Republicans/Conservatives make it a point to visit Liberal web sites with the sole intent of posting idiotic comments on them. Perhaps Liberals need to take a step in the same direction, I propose we start with Fox News. It seems that Republicans can get a networked fined by the FCC by making a handful of complaints, why can’t we do the same? The dubious and deceitful nature of Fox News offends me to a much greater extent than the back of a naked woman could ever possibly offend anyone, so why shouldn’t I make complains about that? I propose we launch a complaint campaign against ignorance, and I propose that we start with Fox News. The difference between us and them is the fact that they read our web sites, they watch our news channels, they listen to our radio stations, and they voice their complaints about them. We need to start doing the same. After all, we have a lot more to complain about.
Posted by Marianna Azar on Dec 2, 2004 at 9:45 PM One thing WE NEVER HAD was a meaningful debate with both sides. Another thing we NEVER HAD was the truth. Well…the truth was heard by those that want to hear it. Face it…we are never going to get it…who indicts themselves! Many of us were born in the church…which if one would actually consider the principles of OBJECTIVITY…know of the sham this institution has become. The LABELING on both sides sucks. The right/left…conservative/liberal…red state/blue state….geez. Although I may not agree with lifestyle choices…they are a mere 2 issues. How can one ignore all of the overwhelming FACTS of deceit from this administration, regardless of who you voted for in 2000? How can one ignore the large financial gains made as a direct result of war & foreign policy by people in & close to the administration? We ALL are being misled…but the divisiveness of this administration has turned us all to name-callers devoid of reasoning & debate. We are split as a country by differences, which is serving as a smokescreen to blind us all! Our economy is on its last leg…and Iraq, which our own intelligence has found no link to 911, happens to sit on the 2nd largest oil reserve. Hmmm…I guess the facts are all merely coincidence. Please lets wake up & unite…stop all the killing of ALL people!!!
Posted by atlien on Dec 3, 2004 at 11:04 PM A significant part of America has been persuaded, thanks to irresponsible tax cuts and wild spending sprees by the GOP, into voting for war. And war we will get and all wars end up hitting all people everywhere, especially the type of war we are creating these days, truly, a world war is brewing.
Remember Mussolini? He invaded a barely armed Ethiopia. This is before any of Hitler’s invasions. The League of Nations struggled with Germany supporting Spanish fascists, but this was a topper and the League of Nations collapsed.
The UN is no longer a functioning organization and many Americans are happy about this. Hooray. No one to stop us from dominating the planet militarily and all the wealth of the earth is ours for the taking, all we have to do is kill or threaten people and they will hand over their natural resources.
Alas for our silly notions, this isn’t happening, even when we disarmed Iraq via the dying UN, we were able to march in and occupy the place….until the people there resisted our theft.
So we are back at home, pumping the flag and broadcasting patriotic propaganda at full volume, trying to get the populace to sign up to be blown up…I note that this is working only in a very schizo way. The right wingers in America are happily waving the flag and singing the songs but they have forgotten how to sign the dotted line and line up to die.
This “have your cake and eat it too” mentality is why America is so hated and is going bankrupt. Note that NOT ONE right wing creep here making fun of us is SIGNING UP TO DIE. Not one. This rampant cowardice is what really annoys me. Go! Fight the wars of imperial lust! Go! Prove your manhood.
Posted by Elaine Supkis on Dec 5, 2004 at 12:28 PM Best to bust out a fresh box of red crayons.
McCain and Guliani in a 50 state sweep in 08!!!
Posted by Barry on Dec 11, 2004 at 5:06 AM Best to bust out a fresh box of Bibles.
Jesus and GOP in a 50-state sweep in ‘08!!!
Posted by Mark Cartwright on Dec 11, 2004 at 4:34 PM We could always use some of our strategies to target ‘swing’ states with call lists etc. to do a targeted ‘single payer’ campaign in a smaller deep blue state or two. (RI or Ma. would work)
Or we could preach to the reds(hot states) about moral public policy. I’m sure the religious people would listen if we added some thoughtful references to the good book!
What would the media message have to have been had the Dems won, too liberal a theme for corporate media.They as Michael Morgan quiped want you to “think like a conservative, vote like a moderate and consume like a liberal, no thinking like a liberal allowed. America’s conservative moral mandate was the media’s echoed theme. Think conservative, consume liberal, think conservative, consume liberal .................Like mixing apples and oranges, think conservative and not liberal consume liberal, they don’t want people to dare think liberal.
Posted by Craig on Dec 23, 2004 at 8:15 PM -
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