Taking Back Our Country

This may sound like the bitter screed of a New Englander, or at least an upper East Coast elitist. But for the past three decades, since Tricky Dick's Southern Strategy, America has been held hostage by a Luddite minority. I am referring to the South and the border states where folks vote based on god, guns and gays.

Whether it is the Southern leadership of Congress or the South's inordinate influence on presidential politics, we have a major problem in America. Rather than progress into a new century, the Southern bible-thumpers have chosen instead to turn the clock back to the Dark Ages. Despite the fact that the current GOP leadership's fiscal policies are extremely adverse to the interest of poor Southern folks, they remain entranced with the gospel of team GOP, who have deliberately appealed to racism, homophobia and religious extremism.

It is not all that different than how radical Muslim societies operate- fill the people's minds with fear and hatred so that they are too busy to realize that the regime is fleecing them. There is something mildly ironic that Team Bush enjoys its greatest support for the war against fundamentalism from our own most fundamental faction. The Muslim bogeyman has replaced the Evil Empire as the regime's favorite diversionary tactic. From god hating commies to freedom hating Muslims. And we call this progress?

It is high time we take back our country from these troglodytes.