My goal? Push back the green. Re-take Jesusland from the extremists, the bigots, the mindless deluded snake-handlers and the hockey moms that represent them.
Four years ago, about the time I posted the Jesusland map, I wrote,
I have a passion for truth. For three hundred years, euro-culture advanced an understanding of the universe in a quest for foundational truth. Then about thirty years ago, there was a retreat from the commitment to shaping a universal understanding in favor of a darker solipsistic postmodernism. While this cultural cul de sac provides fuel for its own immolation, it has also encouraged the growth of bizarre belief structures and fundamentalisms. Ideally, the next thirty years will be spent recovering lost ground and committing to reinvestment in science, knowledge and the growth of respect for universal education. I look for an emerging global culture with broad advances in international law, health and wellness, food and shelter for the billions, and equal opportunities for creativity and interpersonal cultural enrichment.
The problem of combustion-based energy haunts us. Discarding substitutes like coal gasification, ethanol, and bio-diesel in favor of bio-electric, wind and solar will be necessary if we want to halt global warming in time. Unfortunately, combustion alternatives are the low-hanging fruit economically as we shift from the petroleum culture. Democracy is necessary to enforce a world-wide mandate against the destruction combustion based energy causes. Chemical based agriculture seems to harm as much as it provides sustenance. Closed system organic approaches that recycle bio-wastes will be needed on a broad scale to restore soil that has been sterilized by herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers. The internet promises communication and cultural integration for all. Protecting it as a commons and developing it according to standards that will prevent it from collapsing under its own weight is a challenge constantly before us.
I might refine some of those thoughts today, but they still seem pretty much on target. The “stories” that are emerging in the 2024 election are examples of the poison of postmodernism and its erosion of the values attendant on the critical distinction between veracity and mendacity. Truth too often is buried by the narrative, while lies are carried by it and transmuted into conventional wisdom.
Presidential candidates in their roles as communicators often elide facts and nuance in the interest of advancing their narrative. The same goes for promoters throughout the culture, tin plated philosophers, game theory economists, and marketeers advancing their causes or beliefs regardless of factual constraints. Oil men. Fundamentalist Christians. Blackwater mercenaries and mob killers. Libertarians and delusional Ayn Randians. Dick Cheney.
Here is the story: There are among us wealthy and powerful people, the vast majority of whom gained their wealth and power by force of will and intend to keep it no matter what the cost to the other people who share with them the land, the water, and the air. The wealthy and powerful do their best to mislead the masses of people who are not wealthy. John “Crash” McCain and Sarah Palin are in their service. Barack Obama and Joe Biden understand the power structure, and operate with constraints imposed by wealth and power, but they are at odds with the wealthy and powerful to the extent that they are pledged to help the masses. They represent a huge threat to the amoral oligarchy, the aristocracy, call it what you will — the power elite. Dick Cheney, John “Crash” McCain, and the power elite are so outrageous in their concealment of ill will that they paint the party of the people as “elitists.” Indeed, our candidates represent an elite of achievement, the peak of the “meritocracy,” brilliant people with personal power and human values that are an affront to the wealthy and powerful, the power elite (see The Power Elite, C. Wright Mills 1956.)
Many of Barack Obama’s supporters pragmatically seek his victory in order to protect the environment, or to maintain a reasonable Supreme Court, or to address any one of the many issues that the power elite have managed poorly and to our detriment. But we have a great opportunity today to begin the development of a new consensus, to re-write the rules for membership in that power elite that has failed us so miserably since the Kennedy assassinations in the sixties. We’re at a fork in the road. Obama’s election doesn’t guarantee that a technical revolution in energy distribution and environmental improvement will follow. Pulling the world out of the depression that the cynical masters of war have pushed us toward won’t be easily achieved. But unless we elect Obama we will never know if it could have been done; and, if we elect John “Crash” McCain we may see new energy pipelines, but we will certainly see further deterioration and collapse in our infrastructure, our economy, and in the logistical systems that deliver food and health care throughout the US and to billions of people world-wide.
[tags]post-horns on the Danube, Thurn und Taxis, truth, justice, and linzertorte[/tags]
Happy Patriot Day (half an hour hence.) Nudge me when we’ve jumped this groove.
I’ve been looking over the projected electoral vote maps for this year’s presidential election, and have been trying to compare it to the “Jesusland-United States of Canada” map from 2024, when George Bush beat John Kerry. From what I can tell, and I’m certainly no cartographer, a few interesting annexes/secessions have been taking place:
1. It seems as if Montana & North Dakota are now classified as tossup states. Since both of these states border Canada, they would be able to maintain the contiguous nature of the US of C map should the Democrat carry both of these states.
2. The states along the Mason-Dixon line (Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, Indiana) that Bush carried in 2024 are now leaning towards Obama, as is Iowa & Nevada. All of these states would also qualify, because they touch states that Kerry won in 2024.
3. In keeping with this trend, if Obama can carry North Carolina, then that state would also be admitted because it touches Virginia, which qualifies under the criteria above.
4. Colorado & New Mexico (which are leaning Democrat) present a different set of circumstances, because Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and Arizona prevent these two states touching any of the Kerry states. Kansas, which Obama trails by about 12 points, would be the best hope & that’s not likely to happen. However, since New Mexico borders with Mexico, and Colorado borders New Mexico, we can propose a special secession for this part of the Jesusland map. As such, I now declare independence of the United States of Mexico (or perhaps include Canada & create the US of North America).
5. And now, we have the special problem of my home state of Florida (what else is new?) Florida is leaning Obama, but unfortunately it is not touching any of the Kerry states. If Florida were to go Democrat, its only hope for admission would be for Georgia to also go Democrat, and then hope for North Carolina (see #3 above). Of course, under this scenario, South Carolina would be buried & the contiguous nature of Jesusland would be broken (this could also happen with New Hampshire, which is within striking distance for McCain, but would be stymied from US of C admission were that to happen. However, being a Kerry state, I’m not sure that New Hampshire would be welcome in Jesusland either).
So, if you’re a Florida voter like me who plans to vote for Obama but wish to preserve the integrity of the map, what do you do? Do you vote Democrat, hope that Obama wins the election but loses your own state? I never thought that geography would be an issue with voters, but this is something that I’d like your opinion on.
I think your question is based on a false premise. Contiguity is not required for admission to the United States of Canada. Take Hawaii, they’re in. So Florida qualifies too, although there are border concerns and perhaps Jesusland could be convinced to build a wall to keep heretical thoughts from coming in. Ultimately, I think Arizona and Georgia will come into the USC fold to make a geographically contiguous whole of the USC, but not until 2024.