This nation cannot long survive half red and half blue.

[PSU84]

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." - A. Lincoln

The Red States have had their say. If they alone had to suffer the consequences, I would say they have given themselves the government they deserve. Unfortunately, they have given me - and you - a government we DON'T deserve. As John Sperling shows in his recent book "The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America," the red states are a huge financial drain on the more developed and more productive blue states. Our taxes subsidize the moribund economies of Appalachia, the Great Plains, and the Rocky Mountain region. In return for financing their lazy middle class lifestyles, we in the Blue States are now having forced upon us the perverted values of the "Christian fundamentalists" whose ignorance and intolerance make their claims of piety as comical as they are hypocritical.

People who value reason, honesty, equality, scientific inquiry, open debate and the free exchange of ideas - Democrats, in other words - have got to ask themselves some hard questions. Can we - should we - tolerate minority status - virtual subjugation in our own homeland - for the next 20 or 30 years until conservative white Christian men are such a small minority that they can no longer dictate the fate of a nation that will then number more than 300 million? As Richard Reeves observed in his column last week, "a lot of Americans, mostly white males of a certain age, look to Bush and see themselves... angry men who fear losing the country they know (or imagine), fighting to hold back the time and tide of the new, the un-white and un-Christian, and those girlie men, too, who sooner or later will make a different America. Bush has the "Father Knows Best" vote, from men who have lost their personal power and hate what they see happening all around them." Can we let the failures and insecurities of these people destroy the freedoms that make being an American something of which we can be proud. If not, what can we do?

First, we must work to deny statewide elected office to any and all Republicans in the Blue States. Why are the governors of Maryland, New York, and Massachusetts Republican? Why are there so many Republican Senators in the Northeast and the Great Lakes states? They must be defeated, one and all. Make no mistake, we are two Americas, Red and Blue. I want no part of Red America. Their values are not my values. Their goals are not my goals. And their government is not my government. Red America elected George Bush. Let us all do whatever we can to make sure that THEY suffer the consequences.

[PSU84]

1. kick