Empathy for a Nation Torn Apart

The blogger nation is torn. Ripped and divided. Some are happy, many sad, but above all, the vertitable anima of our fair country has been cloven.

I was talking with a friend who worked on the Kerry campaign in Wisconsin last night and had to pour him a number of tequillas before he could begin to gather good cheer about him. Tears were close, and this man happens to be one of the more chipper individuals I know. He said that it was a very bleak and sad day on the 3rd of November. But, most of all, he was deeply heartened by the number of high quality people that do occupy these great States of ours.

Here are some snips from the blogs I have been reading that reflect the deeply divided soul that is our nation at this point in time.

Barlow waxes eloquently on his view of the "defeat."

Slice:

"But it didn't turn out that way. While I still believe that half of America is hallucinating on hot religion and bad TV, I can't say I have been any too sane, having been delivered into a condition where I took comfort in the successes of our enemies and frowned at news of economic recovery. Despite my own financial anxieties, and those of all around me, I have been so zealous that my own well-being was secondary in importance to the political damage bad times might do the Bush administration. Now that's hallucination. And I'm sorry.

Having gone so nuts, I can work on being sane. This is not to say that you're going to find me whispering George Bush's name adoringly, in the eventual fashion of Winston Smith. But from this point on, I will wish him better in many of his challenges. Since we're in Iraq and don't know how leave, I will hope, against my expectations, that our efforts there will result in a functional pluralistic government we can do business with. Hell, I hope for a functional pluralistic government here and pray as well that a kinder, gentler Bush will remember his promises about compassionate conservatism and act on them. I hope that the swan dive he's taking with the deficit flares out and begins to ascend gracefully. I wish him, and us, the best. May all our Gods forgive us and may we forgive one another..."

End of slice.

One republican explains why he voted the other way:

Slice:

"...if you want my vote next time, and the vote of all my close friends, and the millions more like us that you refuse to believe exists, it's pretty simple: take positions and don't waffle on them. Stand up for America, especially with regard to terrorism. Shut up about what Germany and France think. Stop pretending that the only way to become wealthy in America is to cheat, for the sake of those of us who still want to get there. Treat the President with at least as much civility, if not respect, as you would've wanted right-wingers to give a President Kerry. Most importantly, please, please please, please, please, please stop abusing me. No more verbal and psychological and emotional savagery. Treat me like a voter whose vote you would actually appreciate getting, and you will get it..."

End of slice.

Here's a great video drawing a suspicious aim on the spurious practices of republicans in Ohio.
Got this off of Jo Miller's blog.

Jessie Jacksion has a point..."suppose 500 blacks went into a white neighborhood to tell those folks how to vote..."

Here's another apology .


And finally, from some of the talented brains at UMich.edu. Check out the reconfigured maps, showing y'all just how easy it is to mislead people by presenting ordinary information differently. That is, with the usual electoral maps presented in the Mass Media, it is easy to think that the whole of USA thinks like the "red" states. In actuallity, some of the morphed maps more accurately reflect the mood of the people of the USA.

It is going to take a magician to heal this country.