Hello, all. I'm a thirtysomething middle-class father of three in a (sadly) newly-minted red state. I've trolled the net a bit looking for a forum populated with like-minded individuals, and I hope I've found it. Not too like-minded, though. I like a good debate. I'm at least well-spoken if I'm not always well-informed, and I can usually form an opinion about most anything. Never ever scared to share it, either. I'm fairly well-cemented as a progressive, and you may or may not find some of my ideas/notions/theories/paranoias to be radical. Or you may not if you're not wearing your tinfoil hat today. I look forward to a good discussion.

welcome!

You'll be happy here.

May I ask, sir, from which state you reside? I also reside in a red state. Blue county/red state. It's called Indiana. I also am, as you describe yourself, a thirtysomething, just a father to be at this point. One on the way. And judging by your mini-biography up there, I'd bet I'm one to find you as a radical. That's OK, though. It's why there are 2 major parties and elections -- though we just ain't all happy how they turn out to be. Welcome, bud!

Guess that is a diebold issue that needs resolved. We never saw the real results, the beauty of the paper less trail.

Anyway... welcome aboard!

Hello, GeddyLee...

To POAC!

WV. Historically a very blue state. My fellows started drinking the Kool-Aid in the 2000 general election cycle. You'd be amazed and disgusted at the propaganda and dirty tricks that are foisted upon our citizens during those times.

Welcome GeddyLee. My father and his wife live in WV. They are Democrats and active anti-war protestors. They can't figure out what is wrong with all those Republican union members in your state.

Welcome Welcome Welcome!!!

-A-

I vacationed once in WV. Very, very nice area. Love the mountains and that Cumberland Trail road. Kind of funny, though. I live by Chicago, and was surprised by comparison how small the capitol, Charleston, was. Had these orange sticks pointing up there from one of the downtown main streets.

My wife and I entered into WV on I-64. The first exit had an intersection at the bottom with one single stop light hanging there taking care of all four ways. We stopped for breakfast at a restaurant that was, actually, a mobile home. Was about 70 out that morning, and my wife was wearing a sweater. The owner, an older lady, asks, as we walk in, "Is it snowing out?" I thought that was so funny. Grew up next to a lady from WV, so was used to that sarcastic sense of humor.

But $4.00 for a toll? Nothing funny about that, though.

Honestly? Here's likely to be the first time some of ya's mutter "nutbag" after you've read my thoughts. In WV (maybe the rest of the country too, I can only speak from my experience) since the economy is agrarian in the handful of spots where it's not nonexistent, and also since we're sparsely populated, we're fairly spread-out, especially when you get out of town a ways. This dictates that church is more than a place of worship, it's a social sorta scene where neighbors get caught up on community news/gossip, that sort of thing. Since those of us raised in the mid-to-late 20th century were brought up this way, even for those who moved into a more urban environment church still holds this role in their lives. What I'm getting at is that although we're kinda north of the Belt, this is thumper country. Having said that, you simply would not believe the propaganda that flooded into these churches, and the lies these leaflets or pamphlets told during the general election. By the thousands, not dozens or hundreds. With discreet suggestions to dispose of the things (if not overt instruction) after they're read and digested. Stuff like "Kerry is a baby-killer", and "A vote for Kerry is a vote for Satan". You think I'm making this shit up, but you just can't. I'd suspect that in a lot of rural, poor (therefore poorly-educated, generally), church-driven sections of the country these sorts of dirty tricks could explain why so many traditionally working-class Blue states went Red.

Don't take me wrong -- I kid about wearing tin-foil hats. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, more of a "big picture" guy. Sometimes you gotta read the fine print in a "Kerry for Satan" pamphlet before you can see the big picture.

And I'm not even mentioning the insipid phone calls at dinnertime asking if I'd like an abortion clinic in my neighborhood.

I'm in a suburb of Charleston, and yes, our downtown is pretty small. The zoning restrictions will lift one day, I'm sure, to include suburbs like mine because the city tends to sprawl for 20-30 miles from downtown. Given its current city limits, our state capitol has maybe 75,000 residents. Count the sprawl as they do in so many other communities and states (we're generally last to catch onto these things, unless Mississippi or Alabama are feeling particularly slack-jawed that day) and you could boost that number to roughly 225,000. Plenty of folks in this general community (in WV terms. 225,000 is like a neighborhood in a lotta cities, I know), we're just spread out a bit.

We got Affleck and Garner building a house here, though, so I guess that puts us on the map, right?

Wasn't that Joe Millionaire dude from West Virginia?

Yeah Geddy, this isn't the first time I've heard about the unbelievably slimy propaganda tactics waged by so-called Christians in their immoral ravenous drive to gain unchallenged political power. My father's wife left her Methodist church because of this sort of deceitful, unChristianlike behavior. She now belongs to an Episcopal church, which does not participate in politics.