Ted Rall: Confessions of a Cultural Elitist

[Killarney]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&e=1&u=/ucru/confessionsofaculturalelitist
Firstly, living in the sticks doesn't make you more American. Rural, urban or suburban--they're irrelevant. San Francisco's predominantly gay Castro district is every bit as red, white and blue as the Texas panhandle. But if militant Christianist Republicans from inland backwaters believe that secular liberal Democrats from the big coastal cities look upon them with disdain, there's a reason. We do, and all the more so after this election.

By any objective standard, you had to be spectacularly stupid to support Bush. 72 percent who cast votes for George W. Bush, according to a University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and Knowledge Networks poll, believe that Iraq (news - web sites) had weapons of mass destruction or active WMD programs. 75 percent think that a Saddam-Al Qaeda link has been proven, and 20 percent say Saddam ordered 9/11. Of course, none of this was true.

Kerry voters were less than half as idiotic: 26 percent of Democrats bought into Bush-Cheney's WMD lies, and 30 percent into Saddam-Al Qaeda.

Would Bush's supporters have voted for him even if they had known he was a serial liar? Perhaps their hatred of homosexuals and slutty abortion vixens would have prompted them to make the same choice--an idiotic perversion of priorities. As things stand, they cast their ballots relying on assumptions that were demonstrably false.

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[baldguy]

1. Ted Rall can be a jackass sometimes.

But he's a smart jackass. And more often than not, he's right.

[ShaneGR]

2. Ted Rall: Turning off undecideds one voter at a time

Remember when he wrote that cartoon bashing Pat Tillman after he died?

[bryant69]

3. Saint Ted

You shouldn't criticize him. After all he is the last honest man in America, free to say whatever he wants with no consequences. I mean sure that Pat Tillman piece might have pissed of some people, but that is a small price to pay to have Saint Ted, the last honest man in America, around.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[gWbush is Mabus]

5. I find his honesty to be a breath of fresh air

now back to you regularly scheduled propaganda

[wtmusic]

8. That column was the wooden stake

into Rall's legitimacy, in many readers' minds

[ThomCat]

4. I LOVE Ted Rall

As usuall, he's awesome.

[bicentennial_baby]

6. Ted's my man!

Brilliant, as always.

[sandnsea]

7. He's not so smart

He still doesn't hold Bush accountable for saying there were no plans to go to war when the IWR vote took place, preferring to lay the war vote on Kerry which hurt him more than anything in this election. And still runs with the leftist version of Kerry on trade, which ignores his consistent fight to get the kinds of environmental, labor, and human rights amendments in those trade bills that would level the playing field for us and bring up the standard of living for those in 3rd world nations. The exact thing we need to do to keep people from getting pissed off and attacking us in the future. So while his stupidity is just as much to blame for this loss as the red states, he prefers to ignore all of that in order to sneer at others, which is pretty typical for the far left.

[Brotherjohn]

9. Counter-productive as I think this is, there's a lot of truth to it.

It speaks to the big divide in this country, which I don't think is religious, or values-driven, or red vs. blue.

It's intellectual.

There are those who are willing (and driven) to question what they see and to test assumptions, those who analyze facts and use their critical thinking capacity. Then there are those who simply don't.

Republicans have capitalized on the latter, using religious and values arguments, using appeals to emotion. Republicans actually encourage the latter mindset, and foster policies that do so as well (witness voucher programs which benefit private, parochial schools at the expense of a uniform public school system under at least some form of standards).

That being said, Ted goes a bit far when he simply calls Red voters stupid. Many are, yes. But many others might simply be intellectually lazy, scared, or voting on select issues. Hell, many are probably just too busy to keep up with the details of the news to make informed judgements (and too trusting of the powers that be). These people are reachable, but editorials like this are not going to do it.

But hey, Ted's just voicing frustration we all feel. It IS honest, I'll say that.