Racism runs really deep in places like Strongsville, OH, just outside of Cleveland. These are the children of the people that fled the inner-city neighborhoods and moved to the suburbs in the classic 'white flight' of the '70s.

The structure of racism and its demographics is poorly understood in America, and the reactions from Salon readers show this. It's only some 30 years ago that people in Parma were burning black people out who tried to move into the city.

Out here in WA and ID, the racism and discrimination is not centered on blacks. Instead, it finds its home in hatred of Native Americans, homosexuals, and the intellectual elite. You wouldn't believe the hate mail I get for my small, political column in a local paper.

The Netherlands is (are?) not the US. Like an earlier poster said, they already make sure everyone has the basics.

You need to travel. Holland is a good place to start. If you end up staying in Denmark for more than a month, they pretty much require you to register with a physician for FREE health care (even for foreigners).

It will open your eyes -- and while you probably view this as patronizing, quite frankly, if your eyes were open, you wouldn't make such a post -- there'd be a little self-doubt in the tone.

Ending our National Nightmare

Chuck Pezeshki – 10/10/09

Looking back on our shared Republican nightmare, ending with this latest financial collapse, no one can doubt it’s been a crazy eight years. The whole time, we’ve had to put up with the torment of all the right-wing Republican wingnuts, billing themselves as the ‘serious adults’, while acting like a bunch of sociopathic teenagers in a gang. We’ve had to listen to them hollering at anyone who questioned whether anything other than their agenda might lead to a better society. “It’s not fair,” they would bellow. “We’ll be less free,” they wretched.

We’re free, all right. Most of us are free of about $2 trillion in our retirement accounts. We’re free of the possibility of security in our old age. And we’re finally free of the idea that we have to listen to these kooks anymore. After destroying our economy, bogging us down in two wars, stalling progress on stopping climate change, and pawning off any responsibility for health care reform, we’ve finally come to the place where every American has been touched by the Republican malice of incuriousness and know-nothingness.

Oh, they’ll bellow that it’s not their fault. But consider this – in the last eight years, Republicans have controlled the Presidency, controlled the Senate for five, and the House for six years. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence that they’ve been running the show, the most recent comments out of their mouths is that our country’s problems are not due to their actions. For the last couple of weeks, we’ve had to labor under a nonsense barrage that the state of the country is actually Jimmy Carter’s fault, and that minorities are sinking us, that what’s happening is Bill Clinton’s, or Barney Frank’s lover’s revenge. They’re the real villains, instead of a bunch of rich Wall Street traders, and a party that has been bought and sold by K Street lobbyists. Please – can anyone say Jack Abramoff?

What we’ve witnessed for the last 28 years is an entire party with a serious personality disorder. And what an apt description it is. According to the American Psychiatric Association, a personality disorder is characterized by "an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the culture of the individual who exhibits it.” Mood instabilities, black and white thinking, and behavior that others may find deplorable (such as state-sanctioned torture), are justified as appropriate by the ones acting out.

The problem with all of this is that we’re not just talking about a troubled teenager. We’re talking about a bunch of old men at the levers of power, in command of a vast military force, with a profound sense of unjustified personal entitlement. No one symbolizes this better than the current clique at the top -- President Incurious, their latest Presidential offering, Grandpa John, or his running mate, Armageddon Barbie. As Grandpa John’s real military history trickles out, we find out he crashed four planes before being shot down, and took advantage of famous Daddy’s admiral rank to avoid the typical consequence of being grounded. Sound like any other Current Occupant of the White House?

And then Armaggedon Barbie shows up as the ultimate small-town Mean Girl. Who else except someone with a self-love that knows no bounds would buy a tanning bed for herself with taxpayer money?

The election is in three weeks. The Democrats, no great model of an opposition party by my standards, are fielding a viable Presidential contender. Barack Obama, ambitious, intelligent, and energetic, has been offering real solutions on the campaign trail. And I trust someone raised on the South Side of Chicago more than Grandpa John, who’s had the silver spoon in his mouth so long that he’s comfortable throwing tantrums in a national debate.

The long nightmare made by the ‘serious adults’ can end. But we must get out to vote. Our country depends on it.

Moscow-Pullman Daily News (Idaho/Washington)

I've been hammering on the theme that the Rs have mental disorders for a long time -- and not accepting the fact that pathologies are explainable have hamstrung the Left from dealing effectively with them.

Maybe it's just the constant interaction with Idaho politicians. Those people (like Larry Craig) are just a bunch of sociopaths.