I don't know if I want to throw up or shit or take a cold shower.  Maybe hit my head against the sharp edge of a table.  I have, of course, been watching the Republican National Convention.  Barack Obama was wrong in 2004, when he said there aren't red states and blue states.  Wrong.  There are.  This isn't one country it's two.  Both are fallible - sure and it could be argued there are virtues to each, but they are not two halves of a cogent whole.  Rather, an ex husband and wife dividing their once collected belongings by throwing them at each other's heads with all their mite.  I am obviously a partisan.  I am obviously a liberal, or a radical liberal and I am proud of it.  As proud as these backwards hateful mindless conservatives are within say 200 yards of a flag on the lawn of a wounded veteran.  I get the same tingles they do next to an abortion clinic run by mixed raced gay doctors who ride public transportation.  We both enjoy our foibles, that's where I want to begin.  

And so my point is simple, sometimes you gotta pack your things and go.  All relationships end.  Just ask anyone I've ever loved if you don't believe me.  I think America is over.  The honeymoon certainly has been for a long time.  The bridge to nowhere might as well be a bridge to this make believe middle fakey concept of United States.  Not Barack nor John, no, I don't believe anything or anyone can unite us.  Because there is nothing to unite.  The divisions are too severe, too too black and white.  For abortion, or against it.  There is no half, there is no middle.  For gay marriage or against it.  Again where is the middle?  Pro date night?  More war, no war.  Institutionalized God, secular civilized society.

Why are we trying so hard to make it work?  Are we that prideful, can we not admit our mistakes?  It's been bad for years and it's worse than ever.  Why are we in it for the children?  Fuck the children, they'll do fine, they'll be better when mommy and daddy aren't fighting all the time.  It's time to dissolve the union.  The Divided States of America sounds pretty exciting to me.  They could call their part Reganlandia for all I care.  That should appease them.  They can keep the flag too.  They could follow in their namesake's footsteps and deny the existence of AIDS.  They're half way there, clearly some of the children of the Republican ticket are already having trouble with the proper application of a condom.

There is no shame in division, only in mindless continuance.  Both our agendas suffer from the obstructions of the other and we end up down the end of an political cul-de-sac with no where to go.  Like two drunken hags fighting over a trailer park heart throb, who's been two-timing us all along.  The prize is not that great.  

I'd rather jump head first into a dry pool than hear another discussion of teaching creationism in public schools.  You want to?  Fine!  Do it, but do it in Reganlandia.  You want school vouchers and to deregulate everything and no taxes and no programs and no laws more forward looking than were conceived by a disciple of Christ suffering sunstroke 2000 years ago, sustaining his mind eating 65 calories of desert cactus a day and playing his favorite drinking game with his buddies - Thou Shalt Not______ ; fair enough, let me draw you a map to the heart of Reganlandia, Billings Montana - your new capital.  You want to start a war on abstract concepts: drugs, terror, jealousy, be my guest, but there is no ideological draft in which I will participate, your new country is in the middle, enjoy Texas, I hear its a great time of year to be bigot there.  You want to burn the constitution, the bill or rights, fuck - the magna carta, I'll send you a barrel (made in the [former] USA).  Reganlandia, home of the big lie and just crusade!

We, the elite, Arugula people, who pride ourselves on of all things (hold your nose Reganites) education (eeeeeeew, makes squirm), can call our new country The Bicoastal Land Masses of Civil Liberties, Pacifism and Personal Freedoms.  Sure it doesn't roll off the tongue but you get the message.  We get the west and the north east.  They can have the middle (what some have called the shit stain on the panties of the country) and Hawaii (our little gift).  We'll power our equality agenda with wind, our health care with solar, our schools  with hydro-electricity and the only thing we'll drill for is warmth and good nature towards others.  We'll be indignant about genocide and remember the value of political protest.  Women will earn an equal wage, everyone will earn an equal everything.  We'll socialize anything that's not nailed down.  And high quality dental care will be provided for the homeless with the money we save on bombs (which as it turns out will be very easy to sell off to Reganlandia, they are sure the British are coming back one day or the cave people or the locusts).  The arms sales will pave the way for revolutionary breakthroughs in medicine.  By farming research fetuses we will be able to cure everything from cancer to bacne, providing, en route, high paying research jobs for the people of New Orleans (now relocated to Las Vegas - between where the Barbary Coast and Ballys used to be).  

Now as much as I loathe them, they have some good ideas.  For instance, I do want learn something from their border security platform.  I say in the B.L.M.C.L.P.P.F. we need to have some really secure borders to make sure none of the Reganlandians can climb our fences (or for that matter put old whiskey bottles on them for their target practice.  And we must be careful not to travail their soils again either.  As you know, they are proud gun-loving hunters, I've heard as for the length of their season, liberals are game all year round.

There's no shame in divorce, especially when you stand to gain so much by doing it (countless millions, for instance).  A war hero taught me that.  And this may be the one instance when I'm inclined to follow that old raisin's example.

United we fall, divided we stand.  I'm standing, who's standing with me?