[twinaircant]

TWO NATIONS, ONE UNDER GOD

FAMILIES


Travis and Carol Mair, Nevada.


Russ Irwin Porter, director, Harvard Schoolof Public Health, and Christian Schlesinger Porter, elementary-school teacher, who were married on May 17th, with their daughter, Nina, Massachusetts.

PATRIOTS


Cadet Ryan Bocka, West Point.


Caitlin Cianflone, Colorado.

RETIREES


George Engelbach, former sheet-metal worker, delegate, Missouri.


Ernie Garland, former machinist, resident of Reno-Sparks Gospel Mission, Nevada.

MEMBERS


4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.


ACT UP, New York.

OBSERVERS


Bill O’Reilly, Fox News.


Jon Stewart, Comedy Central.

HUMANITARIANS


Ramona Nitz, Luana Stoltenberg, Operatio Outcry, pro-life delegates, Iowa.


Cheri Honkala, Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, Philadelphia.

CASUALTIES


Sgt. Joseph Washam, Texas, third degree burns in Humvee explosion, Baghdad.


Rajinder Singh Khalsa, left for dead on sidewalk, Queens.

SONS

Specialist John R. Copeland, Fort Hood, Texas.


Ron Reagan, Jr., stem-cell advocate, Seattle.

EGGHEADS


Karl Rove, presidential adviser.


Jimmy Carter, Nobel laureate, retired President.

DELEGATES


Patti Coons, Jasper County, Indiana.


Doris Haddock, 94, long-distance walker, delegate, New Hampshire.

Details of ONE NATION’S RAINBOW


Barack Obama, Illinois senator.


Julian Bond, Chairman NAACP, Washington, DC.


Patsy Whitefoot, National Committee Executive Board, delegate, White Swan, Washington.


Mary Alice Palacios, delegate, Texas.


Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chief prosecuting attorney, Hudson Riverkeeper, White Plains, NY.


Sean Penn, actor, director, bad boy, San Francisco.

WHICH NATION?



Photos by Richard Avedon, The New Yorker.

[tearidrusydet]

I saw this and I couldn't resist. The language is a bit strong, but it's completely accurate — with links to back it up.

www.****thesouth.com

[qp0yfHOf]

[pennadyFeet]

two Americas- working class versus middle class. (rich versus poor?) Each one needs the other.

[nuabuncarnigo]

It's not working class vs. middle class; there are plenty of both in both Americas.

It's really suburb vs. city. Pretty much all the blue states have real cities in them, like New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, Seattle, Portland or even (yes!) Los Angeles.

These places breed a mindset that is diametrically opposed to the one you find in the suburbs or in places that claim to be cities but are really metroploitan agglomerations without any urbanity, such as Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix or Dallas.

[Rnlvifov]

Urban versus rural, we'll say. Remember that there are also blue suburbs -- and blue rural areas.

[Dreaming]

Has anything changed?

[BalaGire]

Wow, great little thread. Can't believe I missed this the first time around.

[pavlik]

Probably a bit. Bush hasn't done anything to promote the Republican's future. However, if they come up with a decent candidate, Bush may be forgotten (at least by those who voted for him).

At heart, this is a pretty conservative country, and the arrangement of our elections tend to amplify that.

Has anything changed?

[nobodyhere]

Probably a bit. Bush hasn't done anything to promote the Republican's future. However, if they come up with a decent candidate, Bush may be forgotten (at least by those who voted for him).

At heart, this is a pretty conservative country, and the arrangement of our elections tend to amplify that.

Actually, it is not conservative in the realm of political stance, really.

It is just conservative in that people are afraid of change. EVERY GENERATION has had this weird idea that the past was somehow better than the present. We forget the bad and remember the good (unless the bad was something memorable enough never to forget!).

How many times have you heard the phrase "the good old days"? Too many. Even liberal minded people are reticent on a lot of issues if it would involve a change or sacrifice (even for the greater good) in their lives.


I think one thing is different though. What constitutes change in peoples perceptions. I think that urban environments have seen many thnigs, and been exposed a lot more to differing viewpoints, behaviors and experiences than rural. A change does not seem as radical to someone whose seen it before (and knows that it really is not much of a change".

If we can get past the "well I don't know" kind of feeling most underexposed individuals have in this country, maybe we will see some change that is not as radical as some may think, but end up being good for all of us.

[DariushPetresku]

It's not working class vs. middle class; there are plenty of both in both Americas.

It's really suburb vs. city. Pretty much all the blue states have real cities in them, like New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, Seattle, Portland or even (yes!) Los Angeles.

These places breed a mindset that is diametrically opposed to the one you find in the suburbs or in places that claim to be cities but are really metroploitan agglomerations without any urbanity, such as Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix or Dallas.

Good point but its really looks like the Coats vs the Middle

[buchmausar]

Any discussion like this that uses a "red/blue" map as an indicator of two separate Americas must be the fault of the media. As a country, we agree on many things more of the time than we are told.

Consider that many of those "red" states had voting distributions very close to 50/50. Same for the blue. The political ideology spectrum is what's causing the problem: its airtime is dominated by the extremes. There are far more people who would describe themselves as middle of the line than "strongly liberal" or "strongly conservative." Polls estimate the number of "true" Republicans to be a little higher than 20%; "true" democrats, nearly 30%. Where's everyone else?

[Jasonstawnosaa]

The problem is the reluctance to shed the electoral vote system.

It was originally intended for two reasons. 1, to have it as a filter to any unreasonable action. If an electoral college wanted to, it could vote against the popular vote. I do think they would need just reason though...

2, they were set up to try to lend power to the states in regards to who gets elected and why. If NJ did not like someone (in colonial days) they could have ery well timmed the balance. Almost any state, or small grouping could have.

Problem is that now we have so many states, and so many population concentrations, the whole system is lopsided. I think they should start making it so that elctoral districts themselves get to decide where their vote goes rather than the state they are in. I know this will have all sorts of problems, including the creative border establishment of voting districts, but at the same time I would rather a states votes go teh way the state votes rather than what the majority, how ever slim, votes.

Another solution would be to just make it so that the winner of a state would get the majority of a states votes rounded to their advantage, but not all of them. This way, states like NY and CA would not be ignored if there was a possibility of getting some votes from these heavily populated areas.


But no. Black White, Red Blue, On Off.

Amazing that we, as analog critters, can be so digital about decision making sometimes....

[yqpY4iw6]

The problem is the reluctance to shed the electoral vote system.

Without the Electoral College, we'd have had President Gore and probably wouldn't be in the mess we're in.

An impediment to true democracy, just as it was intended to be.

[Aceroassert]

Without the Electoral College, we'd have had President Gore and probably wouldn't be in the mess we're in.

An impediment to true democracy, just as it was intended to be.

Electoral College is a guarantee of true democracy. Most people are idiots and would sacrifice democracy and freedoms for populist tyrants. Electoral College protects our democracy by not giving direct vote to uneducated majority.

Be thankful to our forefathers, they knew what they were doing.

[slimfifa]

The electoral college is a mockery of democracy. A half-hearted replica of real elections by the people and a system that makes a joke out of voting.

Most people are idiots and would sacrifice democracy and freedoms for populist tyrants. YOU PROVE MY POINT! THIS IS PARTIALLY HOW BUSH WAS ELECTED, (stir in some judicial corruption) and not an argument for keeping it but for getting rid of it completely.

How wrong our forefathers were at many things! Its important to remember that they were functioning in very different times, and the electoral college, a relic of that bygone time, should be abolished.

I'm thankful to the forefathers for many things, but the electoral college, still hanging around in 2007, isn't one of them.

[Peertantyb]

Midtown, although I agree it needs to be changed, as I have already said, it also cannot be eliminated.

If we had some sort of "accident" happen just before teh election, guarantee you that we would be voting in a warmonger without even thinking twice.

Bush's approval rating was IN THE 90s!!! (from everyone but NYC, Ironically) after 9-11. What would have happened if something similar, whether it be a terrorist attack, or gas embargo, or energy problem, or ANY other issue that put the majority at a disadvantage or in a state of moral outrage?

We still need a buffer, but we need to either re-establish state soverignity or find some other way to make i so that a state voting for one candidate or another ammounts to more than Pork.

[anderriter]

Well I think you are wrong.
It can certainly be eliminated, as it does not exist in other actual democracies that work quite well.
Ninjahedge, we voted in a warmonger anyways, two times. (well, loosely speaking since he wasn't really voted in by us to begin with). I don't see how the electoral college, which kicks in once every four years, is an effective buffer in the way you describe. The electoral college is made up of people, just like the rest of us. They would be just as outraged and succeptible to bad decision making in times of crisis as anyone else. I'd rather trust my future to a larger body, namely the entire population not some electoral college.

[illiniastibly]

Well I think you are wrong.
It can certainly be eliminated, as it does not exist in other actual democracies that work quite well.

I still do not think so. Elimination of things rarely works the way the people behind their elimination intend. Modification of it is needed.

I TRULY fear direct voting in this country. People, in general, are stupid. They are easily influenced by the things that they see around them, and are easily manipulated, en-masse, to go in different directions.

It is like what Issac Asimov said, society is always more predictable than its individual parts. An individual might do this and that, but a group is much easier to influence sometimes than a bunch of free thinkers.


Ninjahedge, we voted in a warmonger anyways, two times. (well, loosely speaking since he wasn't really voted in by us to begin with). I don't see how the electoral college, which kicks in once every four years, is an effective buffer in the way you describe. What would happen when people would vote on a more emotional basis. The whole basis for an EC was to buffer and protect from things that would sway based on emotion. Theoretically, they have the power to go against the popular vote! Although that might not be received too well. A deferment based on irregularities might be the better thing to do.

The electoral college is made up of people, just like the rest of us. They would be just as outraged and susceptible to bad decision making in times of crisis as anyone else. I'd rather trust my future to a larger body, namely the entire population not some electoral college. It is a buffer, not an outright filter MTG. It can only soften the bumps, not make them go away.

What I am saying is that they may also serve to buffer the reactions of individuals rather than sacrificing the opinions and votes of others by creating splits among a support base. hat would happen if there was less of a pooling of votes in the 2000 election? 2004? Would it have been as close if you just counted, 1 for 1, how many votes each received in total?

The thing I fear is that with parties like the Democratic party, you are more likely to get people to vote their opinion rather than party line (because of the closer affiliation of the independent candidates platforms to the democrats than the republicans). This would be more hurtful to those that favor free choices on things, more diversity in general in public policy simply because they will not agree on the same things if given a true choice.


If there is a system to eliminate the free radicals from the equation on more of a local scale (electoral votes by district rather than state) I think we could reach a happier medium.

[ptmQqoxw]

I TRULY fear direct voting in this country. People, in general, are stupid. They are easily influenced by the things that they see around them, and are easily manipulated, en-masse, to go in different directions. but isn't this exactly what we are seeing today? despite the electoral college?

I believe the electoral college is more of a danger to the integrity of elections
than a buffer, or filter, or whatever you want to call it. One man, one vote. That is preferable to me. The electoral college distorts the will of the people. It distorts the election process from the day candidates are announced, and opens the door to even more hijinks on election day itself.