The Great Divide:
“Red state people are happier than blue state people. This is because they listen to country music that is forever telling them they live in a great nation and that things could be worse and probably were and if you stand by your man and remember what daddy used to say and love your mama that in the end Dale Earnhardt shall not have died in vain so long as Old Glory waves, Budweiser remains the King of Beers, and forced metaphors about rivers, trains and cowboys remain a part of our First Amendment rights.
“Blue State people, on the other hand, chase their Zoloft down with iced chai while they listen to twelve hours a day of public radio programming which ceaselessly and thoughtfully points out in genteel and condescending tones that we are all pretty much screwed.”
—Tom Bodett, radio personality and author, 2008
Man I loved that.
ReplyDeleteIt's true, but us NPR listeners also get to enjoy Tom Bodett from time to time.
ReplyDeleteJust slumming with you elite Bluebloods, while staying at Motel 6. Keep a light on!
ReplyDeleteShall we say ignorance is bliss? Now here's a hypothetical question for you (or not so hypothetical): is it better to be happy and ignorant, or miserable and informed? A part of me thinks that I would prefer the truth over feeling good. Another part says life is short, enjoy it. I suppose the true measure of the quality of any life is what it is willing to endure to make the world better for someone else. And it's difficult to inspire change when we don't know what needs to be changed because we're living in a John Denver song. Ignorant bliss or informed misery? That is the question.
ReplyDeleteTrue That! I love my red state country music back home. Especially Underwood's "All American Girl"- it get's me with my hand over my heart every time! Thanks Professor Pease.
ReplyDeleteI've often wondered at the lyrics of popular music - country and otherwise - and how people seem to take them on as the definitive authority about how life should be....
ReplyDeletechicken and egg territory - which came first, the experience or the song (film, book) which creates the expectation of the experience?
Have your ever noticed how dysfunctional the lyrics to most songs are? So-called love songs - full of co-dependent immaturity: "you're my everything, I'll die without you; you'll never find someone who loves you as much as I do".... what tripe!
The there's the more dangerous stuff doing the rounds, advocating violence, domestic, societal and inter-racial, usually from an abuser's or aggressor's perspective, and, sad to say, even a jazz standard with a victim declaring that she'll stay with him forever, even though he beats her up...
And then the stuff that stirs up the patriotic impulse and gets the flag waving going - perhaps the most dangerous of all....
Feeding into xenophobia, turning people into sheep following the politicians into war.... and keen to defend 'our way of life' that's built around an imaginary line drawn in the sand and on a piece of paper....
You're in luck if you're born 3 ft on this side of the line - you get this kind of life, with all these resources and advantages, natural, economic, political, personal.... too bad if you're born 3 ft on the other side of the line - your life is quite different and dont you dare look at my life over here and covet it and question the fairness of it all .... and so wars are made.....
As a species, I dont think we really have much to show for our time here on the planet....
Dear Red States:
ReplyDeleteIf you manage to steal this election, too, we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon,
Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the
Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85% of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of
single moms.
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you
don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines, 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, 95% of the corn and soybeans (thanks
Iowa!), most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards
believe you are people with higher morals than us lefties.
Finally, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico
Peace out,
-- Blue States