So let's talk about secession.
See, there's this "two Americas" problem that is much more real and substantive than the metaphor used by the Edwards campaign.
buy grifulvin online buy grifulvin no prescription
The social attitudes in this country, coupled with the geographic distribution of them, have coalesced into a position from which the Democratic party basically can't win an election. And there's nothing they can do about it. They can't get any rural votes, period. Moving to the left will only make things worse, and moving further to the middle will render any ballot choice we have irrelevant.
The electoral map is frightening. You have the northeast, midwest, and west coast – the nation's centers of population, business, education, media, technology, arts, etc etc – voting one way yet utterly unable to exert any influence on the Presidential races or obtain majorities in Congress.
buy antabuse online buy antabuse no prescription
The rest of the country, voting on its regressive moral and social agenda, has a fairly insurmountable-looking electoral and distributional advantage in Federal races.
So while I'm half-kidding in mentioning something like secession, you really have to wonder how much longer the northeast, Pacific coast, and industrialized upper midwest are going to stand for Farmer Bob and the hee-haw crowd selecting the President and Congress for them year in and year out.
Valerie says:
Here here. While I think, down 144,000 in Ohio, the Kerry team probably ought to throw in the towel (unless they know something they haven't made public, which could be the case), I understand the frustration. I mean — come ON. Who wants another 4 years of this idiocy? Here's hoping, but I feel defeated.
It's embarrassing for our country, really. We had a chance to elect someone who might change things for the better — maybe not the ideal candidate, but certainly better than the dufus we've had for the last four years. And the majority of Americans said, "No — I like the way that dufus thinks. He's a dufus just like me." Sad, sad, sad.
eep says:
Sing it, Valerie. I'm embarrassed by my country. I'm sad that people let morals — fucking MORALS — be the deciding vote. There's a crap war going on, and our civil liberties are being slowly but steadily crushed, and the economy's shit, and people are worried about MORALS? They're trying to match up religious beliefs with a candidate's beliefs, when all in all regilion shouldn't even PLAY in this, and…
…I'm just baffled. Seriously, can the Great Lakes and the Northeast and the West Coast go join up with Canada? Please?
mike says:
The thing that is really upsetting to me is the use of the term 'moral grounds' acting as a smokescreen.
Many people oppose the Iraq War on 'moral grounds.' I oppose the tax cuts on 'moral grounds' – making the rich richer is repugnant in my head. As such, millions of Kerry votes are being cast on moral grounds.
What consitutes moral grounds in the new era then? Evidently wanting to deny gays civil unions, and attacking abortion.
erik says:
Somehow it was telling that all of last night we had the ability to watch votes coming in by county (cnn.com) and by precinct (nytimes.com) and kept looking to specific counties to pull through for Kerry. I don't know, for example, where the liberal areas of Ohio are, I just guessed. I looked at the counties where there was actually a city. I did this for every state. Literally every location where there was a concentration of minorities and educated people went for Kerry. Does this make George Bush happy?
I mean sure, he is thrilled that he actually got a majority of the popular vote this time, but does it even occur to him that he did not win a single area where the majority of people are educated? Does it even cross the republican's collective mind that there is a very underrepresented minority in this country getting more and more pissed off with every election? Or do they (more likely) just wish to beat us into submission.
kat says:
i am responding similarly to erik in this whole frustration. part of my frustration is the "creative class" (via richard florida). getting us to do anything cohesively like, say get enough votes for a non bead-eyed candidate, is like herding cats. rawer.
Ed says:
They are also, unfortunately, becoming more and more of a minority with each election.
erik says:
I don't know Ed, I don't think anyone has defected. I just think this election was more telling than 2000 as to just how many of us there are out there.
Remember, Al Gore was less (not much less) of a tool than John Kerry. And Bush seemed to stand for nothing in the last election. If anything, I think Gore got some of Bush's base.
Valerie says:
Erik, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to disagree. I definitely prefer Kerry to Gore. Hell, even Clinton didn't really stump for Gore, and Gore was his VP. I know people say Kerry can seem leaden or verbose, but that's better than Gore, who was flat out dull and uninspiring.
Anonymous says:
"Literally every location where there was a concentration of minorities and educated people went for Kerry. Does this make George Bush happy?"
Are the urban poor more important than the rural poor? Sadly, the uneducated masses of the cities far outnumber the educated few. So really, a bunch of uneducated people in the cities voted for Kerry, and a bunch of uneducated people on farms voted for Bush.
erik says:
I don't think I said anything about anyone being poor. I was just noting the differences in the country… I am not the first person to do this. The question I was asking is wether Bush realizes that there are large demographics that quite frankly offended by his moral agenda. Or, more likely considering the frequent use of the word "mandate" today, will just just assume that coming out 3mil votes ahead entitles him to impose those values on the rest of us.
Oh, and consequently, I am sure that uneducated people do outnumber the educated in most urban areas. However, the vast majority of people who get college or greater education tend to end up living in cities. This is what I am talking about.
mike says:
For moral reasons, I usually stay away from arguments with people who use the phrase "uneducated masses" (are they huddled as well?), but it is an election and I'm in a bad mood.
I think what Erik is describing isn't education per se, but issues of urbanity and cosmopolitanism. As for "who is better" Bush has a reason to be sad about the "rural versus urban" divide as he's supposed to be a, well, uniter and all that.
Anonymous says:
looking at exit poll results, college graduates (vs. no college) were evenly split 49%/49% bush Kerry. Furthermore, looking in more detail:
No H.S. …………49% Bush/50% Kerry
Just H.S. ……….52% Bush/47% Kerry
Some College …54% Bush/46% Kerry
College ………….52% Bush/46 % Kerry
Postgrad ………..44% Bush/55% Kerry
The only groups Kerry got were HS dropouts and those who kept going to school because mommy and daddy paid for it and they couldn't find a job…
Using income as a proxy for education/intelligence:
< 15K ……..36% Bush/63% Kerry
15K-30K ….42% Bush/57% Kerry
30K-50K ….49% Bush/50% Kerry
50K-75K ….56% Bush/43% Kerry
75K-100K …57% Bush/42% Kerry
100K-150K ..58% Bush/42% Kerry
200K + ……..63% Bush/35% Kerry
I don't see the connection between education and Kerry… come on guys, do a bit of research first before you go off ranting (I found this very readily on liberal cnn.com)…
P.S. erik: I do not think geography is the best proxy for education.
Ed says:
Anonymous posters who characterize people who seek higher education as unemployable are really cool, and definitely deserve to be paid attention to. Also, income is an excellent substitute for education. All people who make a lot of money are smart. That's why they have money.
Erik, you're completely wrong. Al Gore was the worst presidential candidate since Goldwater. Kerry was a much stronger candidate, and he couldn't win. Bush won in 2000 for one reason only: when the public can't tell the candidates apart or hates them both, they will always vote for the one who will lower their taxes.
Ed says:
Also, exit polling is really reliable.
And congratulations on your discovery that people with a lot of money are voting Republican. My god, if only you would reveal your name we could shower you with the awards and financial support you deserve so you can continue this research.
erik says:
For the most part I am too tired and frustrated with today to give more than a partial shit about this arguement.
But, since anonymous poster is really getting on my nerves I will give it another go.
1. I am not insinuating in the slightest that geography is a good indicator for education. I am rather implying that people who get college educations tend to want to also get jobs where they use them.
Since you are fond of "data" look at the US census website. I am tired. I only looked up three cities. Chicago, New York, and LA. All of which have a greater percentage of post-grad degrees than the national average. All three had the same level of bachelors degrees except for LA where they are beating the average. Considering that these places nearly all have a lower than average High School graduation rate, I would hope that you would not that this is at least statistically suggestive of what I was saying….Bare in mind also that this only applies to the city proper.
As for your exit polls, perhaps you didn't notice this yet, but Bush won the election. More people did in fact vote for him. However, if you will notice the bits of the poll that you did not mention, Bush's gains from 2000, you will notice that the more educated you are the less likely you were to switch your vote from Gore in 2000 to Bush in 2004.
Amy says:
Alan Greenspan's term ends in Jan of 2006. It will be up to GW to appoint a replacement. Four of the supreme court justices are in their late eighties. It is highly likely that a few will be replaced in the next four years.
I can live with GW and friends holding executive office for a few more years, but it absolutly terrifies me that they have the power to install decision makers who will last my lifetime.
Instead of talk about secession, let's talk about becoming more involved in the process. Please, for my sanity. Giving up is exactly what we cannot do right now.
mike says:
I think Kerry was worse than Gore in the sense that, to quote Norquist, "the Republican Party is a machine designed to beat prosperous liberals from Massachusetts."
Kerry reminded me of Bob Dole in about a dozen different ways, and the fact that he did as good as he did should give us all hope. He went up against a standing president in 'wartime' on the most incoherent of platforms and came within a state of winning it.
As for anonymous, "believing that God will end the world in our lifetime" may also be an excellent proxy for education, in which case Bush will also take the cake.
Ed says:
Oh, he did much better than Dole. Electorally and otherwise. And I think the current war context is significantly different than 1996. But the important similarity – the complete incoherence – is exactly why senators don't get elected president.
The Chair of the Fed would likely have been filled with a cheerleader by either candidate. Political ideology doesn't really enter into that position as much as some people think. While a liberal would probably act differently than Greenspan, the fact remains that anyone Kerry appointed in that position would be as weak and unwilling to bear bad news as Bush's nominee. Paul Volcker was the last chair with enough balls to waltz into the White House and say "we need to cause a massive recession. now." and it is equally likely that Reagan is the last person who would agree to it.
Tim says:
Here's my take on the two [four?] Americas…
http://www.livejournal.com/users/settlement/115930.html
Gary says:
So who does everyone think would have made the best Dem. candidate? It seemed from the very start that running a Mass. Liberal was a very dangerous thing to do. Seems to me that candidates from the South have much better chances of being elected.
John Edwards with his populist message and southern roots? A short record but little to use against him. Yeah, he's a lawyer but so are so many in government. Edwards was my original choice based not only on liking the guy but his electability. I have no doubt the Dems would have warmed up to him and he may have pulled in enough of the South to tip the balance.
Wesley Clark with his military experience? Based on the times, it might have worked. I just don't know what skeletons he had.
Dean? In most people's eyes far more liberal than even Kerry. That just wasn't going to happen though he has and will continue to do great things for the party.
I think Kerry would have made a fine president but it would have been difficult with a GOP-controlled Congress. Maybe it will be more beneficial to let Bush deal with the mess he's made to improve our chances in '08.
Ed says:
None of the retreads from this race are the answer. If any of them had the slightest appeal, they would have been nominated over Kerry.
Right now, as much as it may curl your hair to think of it, the strongest Democratic candidate will be a re-vitalized i-told-you-so Al Gore. Not that I think that's anything other than sad/pathetic, but there just aren't any other options at this exact moment. Over the next 4 years, someone will step up.
Hillary Clinton and Obama have no chance at all. A liberal can't even get elected, let alone a black or female one.
mike says:
I'll never under Hilliary worship at all. Even a little bit. Would anyone outside NY/CA vote for her?
Gore was medicore at best in 2000, when he had 8 years of peace and prosperity at his back; If he was going to do it, it would have had to be in 2004.
Edwards is the only person the democrats have on the national scene (save Obama) that can talk about democratic issues as moral concerns and not as a policy lecture. Clinton talked in the same way, but Edwards has significantly less (but not none) of the slime Clinton oozed, even in the early days.
myconfidence says:
To Tim and Amy:
Tim: The site to which your post refers was the first thing that has made me laugh in two days, once I got it (the first thing to make me smile was my two-year-old nephews garbled "I love you-hee hee" over the phone after I admitted to my sister that I sincerely wanted to leave this moron-majority country once and for all).
Amy: While I respect and understand the sentiment that "Giving up is exactly what we cannot do right now," being involved in the process is only the tip of the iceberg. We're not exactly the Rebel Alliance here. What I'm saying is, the country we live is about as schizoid as it has been for a while. I recognize that not every corporate employee is a greedy minion of darkness and not every war protester is the next Eugene Debs. However, the painful truth is that a person is born ignorant, thus putting progressive/humanist ideals and basic humanity at an instant disadvantage. How the hell else do you explain the fact that some of the most inhumane and least empathic/loving people you will ever meet claim to be followers of a guy who is supposed to be the most loving and understanding people that ever lived? FOR 2,000 YEARS? Give me a baby at random and the time and space to "git 'er done" (as my favorite racist asshole comic might say) and I can make them as rabidly intolerant, hateful, and just plain nnnderp! or as painfully uncritical of pie-in-the-sky powder-puff liberalism as William Jennings Bryan, Joseph Goebbels, or (I can't think of strict example that everyone would know but you've met this dipshit hippie equivalent to Rush Limbaugh at some point when he had overstayed his welcome on you or someone you know's couch).
Is it giving up or is it waking up to the realization that people are just born dumb? That's how my first philosophy teacher saw it: A small child isn't "undeveloped," they're just plain stupid. Unfortunately, some people pretty much stay this way, with certain functional exceptions to their overall neurological flaccidity (e.g., driving a car, watching NASCAR, blaming other races for society's problems, voting).
A person can be taught just about anything. If it turns out that all the rednecks live in a fantasy world where it's okay to hate people while still claiming a commitment to Christ, who are we to convince them tha they are being inconsistent, incoherent, and painfully representative of the worst of humankind's folly in the face of reason and understanding any kind of faithful representation of literature from anitquity (Dur! What antiques got 'ter do wit' Jebu?)? What are we giving up? The pride in supporting Coke's candidate over Pepsi's? Better to just live/create/discuss/spread who and what we are than perpetuate the fantasy that there aren't at least 50 to 100 million people who just don't know enough to decide what the dilly.
Kurt Vonnegut did more to instill respect for workers' rights in me than my lazy-ass union steward. Maynard Keenan and Richard Rorty have done more to inspire me to express myself constructively than any ambitious, power-hungry, status-whore of a political operative (and I've met a few). But the process? It's part of the bloody problem.
Any shithead bible-thumping bigot's or soulless corporate status-seeker's vote is at least as valuable as some half-assed slacker without-a-cause's or peace corps volunteer's. Even worse, the Electoral college maintains the hocus pocus pundits' bankrupt conclusion that America just does lean center right. Yeah, and the Yankees just are a better team. Neither has anything to do with overrepresentation of the ignoramus paranoid gun-toter, "naggar"-hatin', homophobe vote or the inevitably top-three payroll for George Steinbrenner's product. In certain isolated cases, it is better evidence of wisdom to simply wait for many of the elder statesmen of power through ignorance and divisiveness to die off than to believe that someone as vilified as George Soros (who actually exhibits some degree of humanism) can overcome the concerted efforts of scores of relatively equally wealthy fascist plutocrat families can catch up when they've been funding ignorance-tanks and pundigogues for as long as we've been alive.
Sooner or later it must be admitted that it is not a certainty that a piece like George Bush has to be the epitome of America, but it is the case now and has almost always been so. The exception to this rule is when we hit bottom (e.g., the Great Depression, the Civil War) that, sooner or later, people are forced to live up to some of the empty (yes, empty) ideals that the Founding Fathers and their ideological forebears accidentally gave us. Oh, somebody doesn't like disses of the Founding Fathers and their tutors? I'm sure Tom Jefferson was thinking about equality when he was fucking his slaves and John Locke was thinking of voter enfranchisement when using the "holy" Bible to justify slavery. The capacity of an animal for language, empathy, and justice (among other seemingly admirable things) does not automatically necessitate the same. They must be taught and learned, and, even then, can never erase the base fact of the animality of man. So the point is: we're a bunch of animals, and an ideological boot on the neck trumps the ideals underlying the process every time, except one: When the boot wearers are turned out and no longer enjoy the graces of the owners of the boot factories. Don't misunderstand, I think there is no question that I believe in the dictum to "Think for yourself, question authority, believe in nothing," but remember that you're dealing with critters who (like yourself, whether you wish to believe it or not), if they don't know any better, would as soon nail you up or eat you as try to understand or learn from you.
There's a certain justice to the recognition that "To the victor go the spoils" vis a vis Merriam Webster's definition no. 5 : an object damaged or flawed in the making. At the very least, I can sleep for the night now.
miles says:
If the democrats can't win an election, how come they've won 2 of the last four and were one state away from winning the last two. And I don't think people have different political views/needs (which are heavily influenced by geography at times) means they should be a part of a different country. I'm so sick of hearing liberals bitch when they lose. Everybody said "We only lost because of Ralph Nader" in 2000, but were they saying "We only won because of Ross Perot" in 1992? Just accept that America (al least a slight majority) doesn't want some guy inthe office that is more concerned about getting head then dealing with world issues. You guys think yuo were dumb for electing Bush in, I think it was worse to vote in a rapist like Clinton…..TWICE!
myconfidence says:
Red state revolution my arse…
http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7emejn/election/
(Thanks to Tom Tomorrow, a truly great American… fuck you, Hannity)
myconfidence says:
And another thing… does it surprise anyone else that Incurious "I got here by hitting a triple" George thinks a 51/48 split is a mandate that does not necessitate what Arlen Specter, as a very curious and experienced legislator, understands perfectly well? In other punctuation, apparently RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
just whips tarnation out of DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.
Allah save us all…