Seceding Hairline Fracture

The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past. - William Faulkner

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Did you notice the so-called Tea Parties held across the country on April 15th? Or were you too busy filing to care? In some locations, thousands of Americans responded to the sirens of conservative media... In other places it was more like dozens.

These folks were protesting things like federal spending, big government and (of course) taxation. Never mind that the corporate tax rate is today what it was in the 1950s, or that the Bush regime spent us into the largest expansion of government in history. It's not sense they're looking for.

That puts them in a peculiar category, and at long last it must be said: The Republican Party is the Confederacy, geographically, demographically and practically. This would be a particularly intense perversion given that Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican.

This could explain why right-wingers have become so intensely agitated by the presidency of Barack Obama. This comes after the South actually did rise again - but said resurrection only lasted for eight years (about as long as the Third Reich).

In all of modern New England - the cradle of our nation and the place where our freedom was won - and in nearly all the original Colonies, nary a conservative lawmaker exists. To find them you have to go to places where the Stars and Bars once were, and sometimes still are, flown.

Look at where the Republican Party resides today. In the South. Across the Mountain West - Texas, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, the Dakotas. That's the Trail of Fears trod by the Rebel diaspora who could not stand to remain in the South during the horrors of Reconstruction.

Remember George Allen, with his "real Virginia" remarks aimed at "Macaca", a person of Central Asian descent who happened to work for Jim Webb (who won the election)? Look and listen; the mantra of the GOP today is precisely what the mantra of the Confederacy was 145 years ago.

Secede. That sharp word was proudly uttered in a recent public speech made by Texas Governor Rick Perry. It all but oozes out of the ground in Alaska where Sarah Palin's husband was, for years, a card-holding member of a party dedicated to secession from the United States.

What has changed? Instead of bombing Union railways or Black churches, Southern nut-cases like Eric Rudolph turned their deadly habits upon abortion clinics. What would inspire someone to commit such acts of terrorism?

Same thing that was used to justify slavery not so many generations ago, that staple of GOP fundraising, the Bible. Clearly this proclivity for twisting existing doctrine (such as a major political Party or the Constitution) is nothing new.

It's glaring in our history. We've dealt with it before. But that sure as Hell doesn't mean it's past.

pH 4.22.o9