[GCFL-discuss] Jackson on Parks

Fri Nov 4 22:10:15 CST 2005

When are they going to shut up and talk about something real, something of substance?

Won't happen, real doesn't sell because the public dosn't want to hear it...

Dave
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies List 
  To: Shirley Heit 
  Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2005 8:46 PM
  Subject: Re: [GCFL-discuss] Jackson on Parks

  Didn't the press make up the RED states and Blue states just for something to write about ??

  Dave

  Exactly Dave. There is no real substance to this division. Every presidential election in our history, the electoral votes of each state have gone for one candidate or another. In 1860, four candidates each got some electoral votes. In some elections, three, in most recent elections, two. Every election since television coverage began, networks have color coded their maps. Somehow, after the 2000 election, "red" and "blue" became not only convenient color codes on election night, but the definition of the thought process of every person in each state. Pure garbage.

  Looking at the numbers, Kerry received more votes from the southeastern states than from all of New England combined. There are some 3.5 million people in New York who voted for Bush. But the southern states are "red states" and New York is a "blue state." (One of those New York voters is a greenBubble). I live in a "blue" state. Why? Because 10,000 more voters voted one way than voted the other. Some 6% of those voters saw fit to re-elect George Bush AND to re-elect the only senator who voted against the USA Patriot Act. Massachusetts somehow managed to elect both Mitt Romney and John Kerry. Pennsylvania consistently votes for Democrats for president, a majority of its congressional delegation are Democrats, and it has persistently elected two Republican senators, one militantly pro-life and the other militantly pro-choice, who each get out to support the other at election time.

  We each have lots of reasons for voting the way we do, and we as a people mix and match all over the place in the final vote counts. The same could be said of most of the cultural "trends" and fads that the media likes to highlight. Religion, taxes, economic development, environment, you get all types in all states. You can't even stereotype states by their allegiance at the time of the civil war. There were copperheads (southern sympathizers) in New York, Indiana, Ohio. There were parts of Alabama where nobody in a confederate uniform dared to go for the entire war (Jones County being the best known).

  So, I get an immediate reflex whenever someone talks about "red states" and "blue states." There is no such thing. When are they going to shut up and talk about something real, something of substance?

  Siarlys

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