bobs1066
Member
This is the worst example of whiny-@ss baloney I believe I've even seen. 
To read the whole thing, go here:
http://www.thestranger.com/current/feature.html
THE URBAN ARCHIPELAGO
by The Editors of The Stranger
It's time to state something that we've felt for a long time but have been
too polite to say out loud: Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not
live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from
Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the
Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of
sanity, liberalism, and compassion--New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia,
Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and on and on. And we live
on islands in red states too--a fact obscured by that state-by-state map.
Denver and Boulder are our islands in Colorado; Austin is our island in
Texas; Las Vegas is our island in Nevada; Miami and Fort Lauderdale are
our islands in Florida. Citizens of the Urban Archipelago reject heartland
"values" like xenophobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia, as well as the
more intolerant strains of Christianity that have taken root in this
country.
And we are the real Americans. They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens
of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are fools and hate-mongers.
Red Virginia prohibits any contract between same-sex couples.
Compassionate? Texas allows the death penalty to be applied to teenaged
criminals and has historically executed the mentally retarded. Dumb? The
Sierra Club has reported that Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama,
and Tennessee squander over half of their federal transportation money
on building new roads rather than public transit.
If Democrats and urban residents want to combat the rising tide of red
that threatens to swamp and ruin this country, we need a new identity
politics, an urban identity politics, one that argues for the cities, uses a
rhetoric of urban values, and creates a tribal identity for liberals that's as
powerful and attractive as the tribal identity Republicans have created for
their constituents. John Kerry won among the highly educated, Jews,
young people, gays and lesbians, and non-whites. What do all these
groups have in common? They choose to live in cities. An overwhelming
majority of the American popuation chooses to live in cities. And John
Kerry won every city with a population above 500,000. He took half the
cities with populations between 50,000 and 500,000. The future success
of liberalism is tied to winning the cities. An urbanist agenda may not be a
recipe for winning the next presidential election--but it may win the
Democrats the presidential election in 2012 and create a new Democratic
majority.
*
In cities all over America, distressed liberals are talking about fleeing to
Canada or, better yet, seceding from the Union. We can't literally secede
and, let's admit it, we don't really want to live in Canada. It's too cold up
there and in our heart-of-hearts we hate hockey. We can secede
emotionally, however, by turning our backs on the heartland. We can
focus on our issues, our urban issues, and promote our shared urban
values. We can create a new identity politics, one that transcends class,
race, sexual orientation, and religion, one that unites people living in cities
with each other and with other urbanites in other cities. The Republicans
have the federal government--for now. But we've got Seattle, Portland,
San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City
(Bloomberg is a Republican in name only), and every college town in the
country. We're everywhere any sane person wants to be.
*
To all those progressives, liberals, and Democrats who live in cities, we
say take heart. Clearly we can't control national politics right now--we can
barely get a hearing. We can, however, stay engaged in our cities, and
make our voices heard in the urban areas we dominate, and make each
and every one, to quote Ronald Reagan (and John Winthrop, the 17th-
century Puritan Reagan was parroting), "a city on a hill." This is not a
retreat; it is a long-term strategy for the Democratic Party to cater to
and build on its base.
To red-state voters, to the rural voters, residents of small, dying towns,
and soulless sprawling exburbs, we say this: Your issues are no
longer our issues. We're going to battle our bleeding-heart instincts and
ignore pangs of misplaced empathy. We will no longer concern ourselves
with a health care crisis that disproportionately impacts rural areas.
Instead we will work toward winning health care one blue state at a time.
When it comes to the environment, our new policy is this: Let the
heartland live with the consequences of handing the national government
to the rape-and-pillage party. The only time urbanists should concern
themselves with the environment is when we are impacted--directly, not
spiritually (the depressing awareness that there is no unspoiled wilderness
out there doesn't count). Air pollution, for instance: We should be
aggressive. If coal is to be burned, it has to be burned as cleanly as
possible so as not to foul the air we all have to breathe. But if West
Virginia wants to elect politicians who allow mining companies to lop off
the tops off mountains and dump the waste into valleys and streams,
thus causing floods that destroy the homes of the yokels who vote for
those politicians, it no longer matters to us. ???? the mountains in West
Virginia--send us the power generated by cleanly burned coal, you rubes,
and be sure to wear lifejackets to bed.
Wal-Mart is a rapacious corporation that pays sub-poverty-level wages,
offers health benefits to its employees that are so expensive few can
afford them, and destroys small towns and rural jobs. Liberals in big cities
who have never seen the inside of a Wal-Mart spend a lot of time worrying
about the impact Wal-Mart is having on the heartland. No more. We will
do what we can to keep Wal-Mart out of our cities and, if at all possible,
out of our states. We will pass laws mandating a living wage for full-time
work, upping the minimum wage for part-time work, and requiring large
corporations to either offer health benefits or pay into state- or city-run
funds to provide health care for uninsured workers. That will reform Wal-
Mart in our blue cities and states or, better yet, keep Wal-Mart out
entirely. And when we see something on the front page of the national
section of the New York Times about the damage Wal-Mart is doing to the
heartland, we will turn the page. Wal-Mart is not an urban issue.
We won't demand that the federal government impose reasonable fuel-
efficiency standards on all cars sold in the United States. We will,
however, strive to pass state laws, as California has done, imposing fuel-
efficiency standards on cars sold in our states.
We officially no longer care when family farms fail. Fewer family
farms equal fewer rural voters. We will, however, continue to support
small faggy organic farms, as we are willing to pay more for free-range
chicken and beef from non-cannibal cows.
We won't concern ourselves if red states restrict choice. We'll just make
sure that abortion remains safe and legal in the cities where we live, and
the states we control, and when your daughter or sister or mother dies in
a botched abortion, we'll try not to feel too awful about it.
*
The truth is that rural states--the same red states that vote reflexively
Republican in national elections--are welfare states. While red-state voters
like to complain about "tax-and-spend liberals," red states are hopelessly
dependent on the largess of the federal government to prop up their
dwindling rural population. Red states like North Dakota, New Mexico,
Mississippi, Alaska, West Virginia, Montana, Alabama, South Dakota, and
Arkansas top the list of federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid.
And who's paying the most? Blue states. Cities--and states dominated by
their cities. Welfare states, in contrast, demand federal money to fund
wasteful roads to nowhere. Welfare states guzzle barrel upon barrel of oil
so their rural residents can sputter along on ribbons of asphalt.
Take a state like Wyoming, the arid, under-populated home of our
glowering vice president Dick Cheney. Wyoming receives the second-
highest amount of federal aid in the nation per capita (Alaska, another red
state, is number one), and it ranks second lowest in federal taxes paid
(behind only South Dakota). Overall, the federal government spent about
$2,413 per capita in Wyoming for the fiscal year 2002 (the last year for
which data is available), compared with almost exactly half that amount,
or $1,205 per capita, for Washington State. This ridiculous disparity
extends even to Homeland Security funds, which ought to be targeted
toward the most vulnerable areas--coastlines, big city landmarks, porous
borders. But landlocked Wyoming, with exactly zero important strategic
targets, merits $38.31 per capita in Homeland Security funds. New York
state residents get a measly $5.47. An urban agenda would argue for
kicking Wyoming off the federal dole. States should pay their own way,
not come to cities begging for handouts.
*
You've made your choice, red America, and we urban Americans are going
to make a different choice. We are going to make Seattle--and New York,
Chicago, and the rest--a great place to live, a progressive place. Again,
we'll quote Ronald Reagan: We will make each of our cities--each and
every one--a shining city on a hill.
Read the rest of this piece here:
http://www.thestranger.com/current/feature.html
To read the whole thing, go here:
http://www.thestranger.com/current/feature.html
THE URBAN ARCHIPELAGO
by The Editors of The Stranger
It's time to state something that we've felt for a long time but have been
too polite to say out loud: Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not
live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from
Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the
Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of
sanity, liberalism, and compassion--New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia,
Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and on and on. And we live
on islands in red states too--a fact obscured by that state-by-state map.
Denver and Boulder are our islands in Colorado; Austin is our island in
Texas; Las Vegas is our island in Nevada; Miami and Fort Lauderdale are
our islands in Florida. Citizens of the Urban Archipelago reject heartland
"values" like xenophobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia, as well as the
more intolerant strains of Christianity that have taken root in this
country.
And we are the real Americans. They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens
of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are fools and hate-mongers.
Red Virginia prohibits any contract between same-sex couples.
Compassionate? Texas allows the death penalty to be applied to teenaged
criminals and has historically executed the mentally retarded. Dumb? The
Sierra Club has reported that Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama,
and Tennessee squander over half of their federal transportation money
on building new roads rather than public transit.
If Democrats and urban residents want to combat the rising tide of red
that threatens to swamp and ruin this country, we need a new identity
politics, an urban identity politics, one that argues for the cities, uses a
rhetoric of urban values, and creates a tribal identity for liberals that's as
powerful and attractive as the tribal identity Republicans have created for
their constituents. John Kerry won among the highly educated, Jews,
young people, gays and lesbians, and non-whites. What do all these
groups have in common? They choose to live in cities. An overwhelming
majority of the American popuation chooses to live in cities. And John
Kerry won every city with a population above 500,000. He took half the
cities with populations between 50,000 and 500,000. The future success
of liberalism is tied to winning the cities. An urbanist agenda may not be a
recipe for winning the next presidential election--but it may win the
Democrats the presidential election in 2012 and create a new Democratic
majority.
*
In cities all over America, distressed liberals are talking about fleeing to
Canada or, better yet, seceding from the Union. We can't literally secede
and, let's admit it, we don't really want to live in Canada. It's too cold up
there and in our heart-of-hearts we hate hockey. We can secede
emotionally, however, by turning our backs on the heartland. We can
focus on our issues, our urban issues, and promote our shared urban
values. We can create a new identity politics, one that transcends class,
race, sexual orientation, and religion, one that unites people living in cities
with each other and with other urbanites in other cities. The Republicans
have the federal government--for now. But we've got Seattle, Portland,
San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City
(Bloomberg is a Republican in name only), and every college town in the
country. We're everywhere any sane person wants to be.
*
To all those progressives, liberals, and Democrats who live in cities, we
say take heart. Clearly we can't control national politics right now--we can
barely get a hearing. We can, however, stay engaged in our cities, and
make our voices heard in the urban areas we dominate, and make each
and every one, to quote Ronald Reagan (and John Winthrop, the 17th-
century Puritan Reagan was parroting), "a city on a hill." This is not a
retreat; it is a long-term strategy for the Democratic Party to cater to
and build on its base.
To red-state voters, to the rural voters, residents of small, dying towns,
and soulless sprawling exburbs, we say this: Your issues are no
longer our issues. We're going to battle our bleeding-heart instincts and
ignore pangs of misplaced empathy. We will no longer concern ourselves
with a health care crisis that disproportionately impacts rural areas.
Instead we will work toward winning health care one blue state at a time.
When it comes to the environment, our new policy is this: Let the
heartland live with the consequences of handing the national government
to the rape-and-pillage party. The only time urbanists should concern
themselves with the environment is when we are impacted--directly, not
spiritually (the depressing awareness that there is no unspoiled wilderness
out there doesn't count). Air pollution, for instance: We should be
aggressive. If coal is to be burned, it has to be burned as cleanly as
possible so as not to foul the air we all have to breathe. But if West
Virginia wants to elect politicians who allow mining companies to lop off
the tops off mountains and dump the waste into valleys and streams,
thus causing floods that destroy the homes of the yokels who vote for
those politicians, it no longer matters to us. ???? the mountains in West
Virginia--send us the power generated by cleanly burned coal, you rubes,
and be sure to wear lifejackets to bed.
Wal-Mart is a rapacious corporation that pays sub-poverty-level wages,
offers health benefits to its employees that are so expensive few can
afford them, and destroys small towns and rural jobs. Liberals in big cities
who have never seen the inside of a Wal-Mart spend a lot of time worrying
about the impact Wal-Mart is having on the heartland. No more. We will
do what we can to keep Wal-Mart out of our cities and, if at all possible,
out of our states. We will pass laws mandating a living wage for full-time
work, upping the minimum wage for part-time work, and requiring large
corporations to either offer health benefits or pay into state- or city-run
funds to provide health care for uninsured workers. That will reform Wal-
Mart in our blue cities and states or, better yet, keep Wal-Mart out
entirely. And when we see something on the front page of the national
section of the New York Times about the damage Wal-Mart is doing to the
heartland, we will turn the page. Wal-Mart is not an urban issue.
We won't demand that the federal government impose reasonable fuel-
efficiency standards on all cars sold in the United States. We will,
however, strive to pass state laws, as California has done, imposing fuel-
efficiency standards on cars sold in our states.
We officially no longer care when family farms fail. Fewer family
farms equal fewer rural voters. We will, however, continue to support
small faggy organic farms, as we are willing to pay more for free-range
chicken and beef from non-cannibal cows.
We won't concern ourselves if red states restrict choice. We'll just make
sure that abortion remains safe and legal in the cities where we live, and
the states we control, and when your daughter or sister or mother dies in
a botched abortion, we'll try not to feel too awful about it.
*
The truth is that rural states--the same red states that vote reflexively
Republican in national elections--are welfare states. While red-state voters
like to complain about "tax-and-spend liberals," red states are hopelessly
dependent on the largess of the federal government to prop up their
dwindling rural population. Red states like North Dakota, New Mexico,
Mississippi, Alaska, West Virginia, Montana, Alabama, South Dakota, and
Arkansas top the list of federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid.
And who's paying the most? Blue states. Cities--and states dominated by
their cities. Welfare states, in contrast, demand federal money to fund
wasteful roads to nowhere. Welfare states guzzle barrel upon barrel of oil
so their rural residents can sputter along on ribbons of asphalt.
Take a state like Wyoming, the arid, under-populated home of our
glowering vice president Dick Cheney. Wyoming receives the second-
highest amount of federal aid in the nation per capita (Alaska, another red
state, is number one), and it ranks second lowest in federal taxes paid
(behind only South Dakota). Overall, the federal government spent about
$2,413 per capita in Wyoming for the fiscal year 2002 (the last year for
which data is available), compared with almost exactly half that amount,
or $1,205 per capita, for Washington State. This ridiculous disparity
extends even to Homeland Security funds, which ought to be targeted
toward the most vulnerable areas--coastlines, big city landmarks, porous
borders. But landlocked Wyoming, with exactly zero important strategic
targets, merits $38.31 per capita in Homeland Security funds. New York
state residents get a measly $5.47. An urban agenda would argue for
kicking Wyoming off the federal dole. States should pay their own way,
not come to cities begging for handouts.
*
You've made your choice, red America, and we urban Americans are going
to make a different choice. We are going to make Seattle--and New York,
Chicago, and the rest--a great place to live, a progressive place. Again,
we'll quote Ronald Reagan: We will make each of our cities--each and
every one--a shining city on a hill.
Read the rest of this piece here:
http://www.thestranger.com/current/feature.html
:banghead: 
Its a shame we can't just move all of "Them" into one large city/state and leave the rest of the USA to "Us".