thank you this is straight up right this mess is gone too damn far now that's our president and he is supposed to be respected.

South Carolina is the first state to separate itself from the Union, and was the place where the Civil War started. It forced Jefferson to delete any references to slavery from the Declaration of Independence. I insisted in carrying the slave trade during the Civil War.

A racist state. Wilson is in keeping with this long tradition. Racist bimbos abound in South Carolina.

It seems that some of the teabaggers/birthers seriously want *another* US civil war. Drudge linked to a Pat Buchanan column that almost seemed a call for a violent dissolution of the union, comparing our nation to an unhappily married couple (of 300m?), because some love Martin Luther King while others still revere Robert E. Lee (though it may seem hypocritical, I have a proud Southerner's affection for both). I'm not sure Buchanan and other radical "conservatives" quite understand what they are asking for.

I know a lot of soldiers have been at war for years, but even they would be risking more with a war at home; their friends, families, infrastructure, food, and respite. Their civilization. Having to kill, not just strangers, but old drinking buddies with whom disagreements were once barroom conversations. The tragedy of 9/11 cannot compare with the Battle of Gettysburg, and how much more damage would we inflict with today's terrible weaponry?

I work in Central America, and it is fascinating to see how far people will go to avoid civil war. This desire for peace at almost any cost is manipulated by politicians like Micheletti and Ortega, of course, but is also the foundation of strong, stable democracies like El Salvador and Costa Rica.

Because no matter how bitter the disagreements between people, one doesn't call for Civil War so freely when the memories of bombs dropping on your home, landmines maiming your children, still echo. Where the ruins of a church where parishioners once fled for cover remain bleak and broken in some quiet corner of the city, or worse, like the church at El Mozote, have been transformed into a monument for 1000 dead civilians lost in a blaze of gunfire, 149 of them children.

Interestingly, Joe Wilson was one of the people behind those "civil" wars; he was a staunch and irrational apologist for the Iran-Contra Affair, and his friends supported Reagan's denial of the Massacre of El Mozote. Bear in mind, you who admire his antics, that this man's love of conflict, lies, and hatred has not been visited on his home in 150 years. Perhaps this is why he invites such bloodshed for a few dollars of Big Pharmacy's sweet profits, because he thinks it cannot happen here. Can't it?

Thus, I would ask him, and anyone else who calls for civil war so lightly, to visit the church of El Mozote, and contemplate the graves of those 149 children. And ask themselves, "Do I hate my neighbor this much? For wanting universal health care, or hoping to make abortion illegal? Can we not solve our differences some other way?" Because the lies of this same Joe Wilson - and his friends and contemporaries who still shape public opinion - once devoured an entire village with fire and bloodshed. They were able to censor the press, as in any foreign war, but it happened just the same. And if they successfully sow those seeds of hatred and mendacity here, you (if not those in foreign lands, with their own censored press) will see it first hand. Do not let that be the first moment that you finally appreciate peace.

What do you mean Crazy-Ass republicans every where.....you couldn't make this "stuff" up....I am tired of being played as a fool that would even think for a moment this behavior was somehow acceptable in our Country!

DemsDeBreaks

While you go on your rant about South Carolina, you might talk about carzy ass pols from 1. New York: Ellot (Visiting a Call Dirl) Spitzer, and 2. Charlie (Tax Cheat) Wrangell, or how about 2. Illinois: the whole crooked Chicago machine starting with Richrad (I fix elections therefore I am) Daley, Sr., Rod (Pay-to-Play) Blagojevich. Hey Dems, when you attack the South why don't you try to be a little less disingenious?

i grew up in WI, in the late 80's we used to golf in MS, cuz it was great to get away from the frozen tundra in the winter & they had some great packages. as we were driving down to biloxi, the guys i was with, had the number of a course right off the interstate in jackson MS. i was the new guy so i had to call for a tee time. i called & said we were from WI & in southern IL, & needed a 12:30 tee time. the southern drawl on the other end said "y'all ain't got no niggers with ya do ya?" my friend of 20 years had never seen me speechless before.
when we got to biloxi, there were absolutely no blacks golfing & no white greenskeepers---not much has changed since "the war of northern aggression"

MN, you have your own problems. Please help rid Congress of Bachmann but keep Franken who is a breath of fresh air. (Hopefully Coleman has gone home to NJ, his home state.) Please give us a credible Democratic candidate to oust that wingnut Bachmann.

Racism is not a State but an individual choice, and unfortunately it can be found in every American city, state, community, town, rural area and back road country etc. I am black and was raised in Indiana born in Missouri. In 1962 I walked 11 blocks to school in rain, snow, sleet and shine as the school bus collected the white children from the homes that I past everyday
only to arrive at school freezing and or soaking wet and had to face the same children that past me on the bus everyday. I had two best friends, Rhonda and Anna. Race didn't matter to us we became classmates and brownie scouts and at recess most of us played together and didn't think about our race, though we were curious about each others hair and how we danced with so much rhythm. What I wish is that adults would think as children more often and look beyond the color and see inside the heart. Joe Wilson was way out of line and so was Cantor.

Thanks for that childish and stereotypical comment, travelin turtle.

I think we should treat this gut with kid gloves. He is so vile and repugnant we cannot that he needs to be left unabused and unforgiven. Leprosy comes to mind, but a moral leprosy.

...and I fart in their general direction!

Yeah. I recently saw something on TV about Southern guerrillas who fought for the Union in a Confederate state (perhaps this was about the Knight Company in Jones County, Mississippi).

The Civil War had no simple division along state lines. Many Northerners also fought for the South.

lanD2
Yeah. I recently saw something on TV about Southern guerrillas who fought for the Union in a Confederate state (perhaps this was about the Knight Company in Jones County, Mississippi).

Most of my relatives are from that area: "Whereas, The State of Mississippi has seen fit to withdraw from the Federal Union for reasons which appear justifiable, and whereas, we, the citizens of Jones claim the same right, thinking our grievances are sufficient by reason of an unjust law passed by the Congress of the Confederate States of America, forcing us to go to distant parts... therefore, be it Resolved, That we sever the union heretofore existing between Jones county and the State of Mississippi, and proclaim our independence of said state, and of the Confederate States of America-and we call upon Almighty God to witness and bless the act."

Mexicans guzzle beer; in fact, everyone should guzzle beer. The real issue is that many Mexican beers sucks.

Of course, following that line of reasoning, have you ever drank "Dixie" beer? It makes Corona taste like champagne.

Only a moron KKK robe-wearing needle-dick redneck would drink that.

Sorry for my sociology exercise. I am hardly "racist" I was just curious what the replys would be and no one disappointed me. There are enough confirmations of this inbred hatred. Recently, I had dinner with a doctor from the South and he hoped that someone will take a gun and... I couldn't believe it. But as a white, registered Republican, who voted for the President, I am terribly disappointed in how thinly veiled this racism is in our country. Now I understand why our black brothers and sisters never fully believed that racism had lessened. Thanks for proving it.

ryokisan - 'what makes me the angriest here in the south, don't know about other parts of the country, are that it seems white people think if there are no people of color around, it's okay to say something derrogatory or use the n word or tell a joke, just b/c I am also white. uhm, no.'

Exactly. Or if it's a white guy and black guy talking, then it's about some other kind of guy. And it's not just the South that is like that.

I use to live and work in Madison, Wisconsin for a Fortune 500 company. We had a single mainframe computer supported on site, and a single IBM mid-range system supported remotely by a team of system admins in the Detroit area. I got along very well with manager of the team and we were friends of sorts, though we had never met.

Once day we were talking politics, and as he was a big Elizabeth Dole fan he tried to convince me of her qualifications for POTUS. I was unconvinced and somehow he veered off to talking about 'those people'. I asked him what he meant, and he said 'blacks'. Not the n-word or anything like that. Really the more subtle form of racism.

I stopped and told him that I was black, and that he should be more careful with his telephone conversations as many blacks in the Midwest, especially in small towns like Madison, sounded exactly like they were from the Midwest, rather than like Huggy Bear on 'Starsky and Hutch'. I could hear him sweating over the phone, so I 'fessed up that I wasn't black.

That being said, in Madison I had met a good number of African-Americans who sounded exactly like someone from south central Wisconsin, certainly more so than me with my south central Texas accent that I had learned how to turn off and on while working and living in Virginia, prior to moving to Wisconsin.

It's called denial, honey.

In the south, it IS considered appropriate to tell racial jokes and use racial slurs in "whites' only'' company .... and why is this? Because so few white southerners have any objection to such idiocy.

And that's true in much of the north as well.

To all of you stupid hypocrites from the North:

Wake up and do something about your own racism up North and out west. Most of you are too stupid to realize that racism is alive and well up North. You hide behind your racism by making stupid remarks about the South. I have been all over the country and the most incidiary and racist comments that I have ever heard were outside the South, Deal with it you stupid hypocrites.

Relax. I was just curous about the responses. Peace.

Uhhh--Yes, living in the South does indeed make you brain dead. I spent 35 years of my life in the North, and 37 years split between Memphis and New Orleans. Mediocracy is a way of life down here, and to do better just makes people nervous.

I do agree with you about basic punctuation, however.

Woops---mediocrity.

Uhhhh- Roger37, you are a jackass.

Uh-h-h-h, up yours.

Uhhh- Roger. Hmm. Up yours? I didn't realize that you were so articulate. I guess your Sally Struthers correspondence program paid off. You are so original, bet your moomy is proud.

True story. When I was a teenage in the mid-80s, I visited relatives in Columbus, SC. It was my first time outside of my home state of New York. I happened to be sitting on the porch when one of my uncle's friends happen to step outside and proceeded to tell me that he couldn't work with black people. I was surprised he was telling me this, being that I was just a kid still in high school at the time. It was like he was confessing a sin or something. It showed me that racism was/is still alive and well.

I agree--excellent post!

Cluesearch. Finally, someone who is intelligent posts here. Thank you for your comments.

I just noticed. Sounds like a good description of our form of government, what with lobbyist $ and all that.

Hey, schmuck: I spent 40 years in corporate life and I've been in every large and medium sized city in the USA, most of them at length. I know what I'm talking about. Mediocrity exists big-time down here, and also in the rural parts of a lot of Northern and Western states, but mainly in the South.

So stick it in a handy orifice.

Roger don't dignify him with a response the only thing he's posted here is hate he adds nothing of substance to the conversation and should be ignored like a petulant child.

Roger37. Schmuck??? Oh wow, I guess you really put me in my place. As far as your 40 years in corporate life, I am sure that Dominoe's Pizza hated it when you turned in your pop-up Dominoe's sign that you put on your Toyota Turcel delivering pizza. And you have been in every large and mid size city in the U.S. and you know what you are talking about? Good for you. Well, I guess reading is a foreign concept to you. Let's talk about some of these "advanced" Northern and Midwestern cities. About 10 years ago, Peter Jennings co-authored a book called "The Century." Yes, he talks about racism in the South and he also addresses it in BOSTON. I assume that you had geopgraphy somewhere in your limited education and you might know that Boston is in Massachussetts, not in Mississippi. Bet you didn't know that when a federal judge ordered public schools in Boston to desegregate that all hell broke loose. A black man was beaten in the mainly white South (Ooops the South) Boston neighborhhood. Absenteeism was high in these "advanced" neighborhoods. How about what happened in Los Angeles twice (1965 and 1992) as far as riots? Oh but they are so much more advanced.

I remember driving through Cleveland, Ohio. Now that is such a "beautiful" city. You might get your mom to read to you about Lake Erie catching on fire because of the toxic oooze that fouled that lake. That never happened in the South. So, your subjective and bigoted opinions about the South are not factual. They are based on your own prejudices.

Crngndmhm. In case you haven't noticed, Roger and some of his ignorant friends started the hate insults. If you want yo add something "constructive" you might own up to the fact that the North is not all that progressive. Truth hurts.

suzannewynn: By law, we require hospital emergency centers to treat any people who come. This includes illegal aliens.

The health care reform bills being considered in Congress do not help illegal aliens. Illegal aliens will still have to use emergency centers.

I would remind you that we could save money if we had universal health care that included caring for illegal aliens. Emergency centers are extremely expensive, and we all pay for them with higher health insurance premiums.

AlanD2, I know that is why I am outraged at the right for their outright lies and crap as they know this and have done nothing about it for decades!!! So taht is my point we already provide the American people need to wake up and smell the coffee and understand Obama is on our side! And I agree about the universal healthcare you raised. I do understand the whole issue unlike some people.

Good for you, suzannewynn. We liberals need more support from people like you.

A few years ago I was working and living in Massachusetts. I once asked my coworkers who had heard of Tom DeLay. Not a one. I informed them that he was probably one of the most corrupt and dangerous men in the US, from Sugarland, TX, naturally. Given the level of political mendacity, sheer incompetence, and stupidity that has been rolled out to Texas in the past decade, folks in the rest of the country are well advised to be on their guard against anything issuing from this toxic state. Texans have little to be proud of. They have a fool for a governor, and some members of Congress who are a blight on the Republic. The American Republic, not the mythical Republic of Texas to which many Texans still think, or wish, that they belonged. Texas now "enjoys" one of, if the highest, level of uninsured. It has one of the most deplorable school systems in the country and a system of book acquisitions run by fundamentalist hacks. Yes, the resentment and suspicion you felt was real, and it was deserved. Texans have done much to poison the political well of this country. If you're a Texan traveling in the United States, tell them you're from New Mexico. Most Americans think that's a Central American country.