Red or Blue View Deepens the Divide/Op/Ed.. (lost brother in WTC/9/11!)

[KoKo]

POINT OF VIEW
Published: Nov 9, 2004
Modified: Nov 9, 2004 8:24 AM
A red or blue view deepens the divide

By DAVID POTORTI

CARY -- Question: why is New Mexico, where 48.9 percent of voters chose John Kerry, called a "red state"? And why is Michigan, where 49.4 percent of voters chose George Bush, called a "blue state"? Why is a country which was nearly evenly split between the two candidates described as "a nation transformed," and the wishes of 51 percent of voters seen as a "mandate?"

Those are questions worth asking as the media, politicians and even those on the left give life to two lies: that America is hopelessly polarized, and that Kerry voters were mere hangnails to history. The lies are reinforced by graphic representations of the winner-take-all Electoral College, which paints America as uniformly red with a few stray fringes of blue waiting to drop into the sea (or float into Canada). But this is one case in which a picture isn't worth a thousand words, and in fact, oversimplifies to the point of conveying an opposite meaning.

As now being engaged, the red/blue debate serves as just another means of marginalizing the left, and this argument is already being internalized by newspaper columnists and letter-writers -- from Maureen Dowd's "little blue puddles" and Thomas Friedman's "two nations under God" to those who earnestly write in with tales of waking up Nov. 3 in a nation they no longer recognized, commanded by those who've never seen a bagel or a homosexual.

But more destructively, the alleged red/blue divide serves to suppress whatever inclinations we might have to reach out to those with whom we disagree. Would you be more likely to engage with someone as their equal, from a place of common ground, or as a fringe minority, waging a hopeless battle to enter "the red zone?" The map tells those on the left that engagement isn't worth it, while telling those on the right that engagement isn't necessary.

But engagement, more than anything else, is what is so sorely needed today. Understanding where "the other" is coming from doesn't mean surrender, and conversation doesn't require conversion. It does, however, require remaining open and teachable -- and in this regard, those on the left are just as guilty as those on the right of refusing to understand the motivations of those with whom they disagree. Not the fanatics, who aren't interested in rational discussion, but with the majority of people who aren't fanatics.

How would it change the perspective of right-to-lifers if they understood that antiwar activists were acting out of their own concern for the sanctity of innocent life -- even the lives of innocent kids in Iraq?

More of this interesting read:

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/story/1812754p-8117313c.html

[NoodleBoy]

1. take a look at this:

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. If we has a proportional congressional vote....

we would see a 50.1%-49.9% Congress instead of 55% Repugs in the Senate and 54% in the House.

[Solitaire]

3. very well written

It's a wonderful way to describe how we might be able to mend fences, but the problem as I see it is that they don't want to follow the rules of our nation.

One that stands out in my mind is "separation of church and state". Very important issue to me.

Need sleep. too tired to think more....:tinfoilhat:

[Kurovski]

4. The Electoral College is obsolete.

"Those are questions worth asking as the media, politicians and even those on the left give life to two lies: that America is hopelessly polarized, and that Kerry voters were mere hangnails to history. The lies are reinforced by graphic representations of the winner-take-all Electoral College..."