This is it, folks, the most rabid and unreasoning assessment of the Bush victory. It's a heart-felt piece called "The unteachable ignorance of the red states" by Jane Smiley, a California novelist. For sheer distilled quintessence of bile, this takes the prize; hatred oozes of out of every pore for those Americans, her fellow-countrymen -- her own relatives, in fact -- who live in states which did not vote for John Kerry. By simple virtue of living in these areas, these folk are of one flesh and soul with the evil-doers of past centuries, being responsible for the mistreatment of slaves and natives. They manifest the following characteristics: ignorance, of course, and racism, but they are also predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant; they love to cheat and intimidate. Worse yet, they are dupes and fools in the hands of (drum roll, please) "the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, [who] decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey—workers and consumers."
So there is the answer of the Left. The problem with this country is: the invincibly ignorant Americans of the south, west and mid-west who disagree them.
Posted by Dexter at November 4, 2004 10:40 PM