Stephan:   The truth no one in the mainstream media seems willing to talk about is that those states governed by racist Theocratic Rightists are deteriorating into third world countries. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama particularly, now have a quality of life for large portions of their populations that is quite similar to a Central American nation like Guatemala or Nicaragua. In North Carolina a baby both in that state has a poorer chance of surviving birth than a child in the small impoverished African nation of Botswana. And North Carolina is far from the worse case in the U.S. They are actually 36th. Louisiana and Mississippi, for instance, are much worse. The image of a vibrant upwardly mobile middle class country is central to the American myth, and how we see and describe ourselves. Sadly, it is now a fiction, for all too many. I think we are too ashamed to tell ourselves the truth. But, God, I hope we get out and vote, always selecting the most compassionate life-affirming option.