Riding out this dark age

An old time Republican speaks out in this op-ed in the Baltimore Sun and it's worth a read. I'll do a few snips but you really should go to the source and read the entire piece.

The psycho-graphic profiles of the electorate by partisan consultants contributed to a rising political hypochondria that permitted individuals like me to feel the pangs of every ideological symptom out there. The media-concocted red-blue divide offered an easy escape from having to sort through the complex issues.

But whether one thinks red or blue thoughts, the Blues must deal with the reality of terrorism. Yet the Reds claimed the security issue for themselves. Who wants to blow up a cornfield in Iowa anyway? The Blues, who have the most to lose, felt most secure in Sen. John Kerry's embrace.

In fact, Osama bin Laden's TV warning in the last week of the campaign clearly stated that his issue is with the American voters who have supported the interventionist and exploitive American policies in the Middle East over the years. His warning, clearly aimed at the red states, was ignored by the media even though the English translation was available.

Amazingly, pollsters told us that the dominant issue for the Reds in their electoral choice was "moral values." Gone was the traditional pragmatism that had served the democracy well since its founding, replaced by the raw emotionalism of the evangelical flatlanders dancing on the graves of Christopher Reeve and Rock Hudson. The Reds, in effect, elected a new spiritual leader. In the blue states, where high church denominations tend to dominate, they leave those decisions to cardinals and bishops' councils.

He concludes with this:

Life is cyclical. We defeated the fascists in 1945, and it took 50 years for their ideology to reassert itself. Given the quickening pace of political and social evolution, a new age of reason should dawn in about 20 years. Until then, I will detour my annual family vacation from a North Carolina beach to the Jersey shore. I will only eat California oranges, and luckily most of the good wine is produced in blue states, etc., etc.

The word Fascist has been used by the extreme left to describe the US government since the 60s, but the "F" word was used by this old Republican to describe the Bush Republican party. Do a Google search for fascism and you may be surprised how the actions of the Bush administration mirror the actions of Mussolini.