It's time for some gringo to read between the lines and call a spade a spade. It might as well be me.
This United States of America thing – it was a great idea while it lasted, but it’s time to face the fact that it isn’t working anymore.
Texas didn't want to join the Union in the first place, and undercurrents of secession have always run as strong in the Texas legislature as Texas chauvinism. Let 'em, I say.
It's time for some gringo to read between the lines and call a spade a spade. It might as well be me. In response to President Obama’s re-election, some red stators are trying to get Texas, Florida and others to secede. I say, let California be the first – why wait?
This United States of America thing – it was a great idea while it lasted, but it’s time to face the fact that it isn’t working anymore. Given all that’s happened over the past eight years, it’s either time for blue states to secede or grab onto the last vestiges of a federal government and kick out the red states. I don’t want to get into too much finger-pointing, but Bush Jr’s divisiveness has finally caught up with us, and this union thing isn’t working anymore.
I'm not just going to sit here and say, "We waz robbed in 2000!" Every writer in America entered that essay contest. OK, so we waz robbed in 2000 -- enough about that. Paul Krugman stated it most eloquently in his NYT column of August 19, 2005 titled, “What They Did Last Fall.” He said, “we waz robbed,” so I don’t have to.
Let’s review: back in 2000 Tom Delay was threatening to shut down the government, and the Republicans sued in the Supreme Court to PREVENT a full and accurate count of the votes in Florida. Texas energy companies conspired to jack up the prices of their commodities in California, and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said it wasn’t so. Turns out it was so. Now I get it, it is a grand Republican design: to dissolve the United States, so Texas can be Texas; Florida can be Florida, and the crackers who want to fly the Stars and Bars can do so. Those states can re-segregate their school systems, or close them all together. California and western states can have their medical marijuana, and the folks in Texas and Florida won’t have to lose sleep over it because we won’t be related anymore.
Another option is for the blue staters to hold onto the union and kick out the red staters. After all, it is OUR union too. So, with a combination of secessions and expulsions, everyone can eventually get what they want. Texas, Florida and like-minded states can keep the war going in Afghanistan and the rest of us can declare peace.
Florida has become an embarrassment: taking black people off the registered voter list, using state troopers to stop others on the way to the polls; allowing Republican operatives to "correct" absentee ballot applications. Their inability to run a fair and clean election held up a presidential decision for the first time since 1876. Now it turns out they got it wrong in a big way. So they're ripe for punishment. Expulsion from the Union, I say. They can have a war with Cuba and let off a lot of steam. Then, if Jeb Bush can get away from his new sugarcane plantations long enough to boink Katherine Harris, they can have their own cigar and g-string scandal, just like the big boys and girls. Only the characters won't be as wholesome.
Texas didn't want to join the Union in the first place, and undercurrents of secession have always run as strong in the Texas legislature as Texas chauvinism. Let 'em, I say. They can have Bush Jr. as their President For Life and their own country. Then they can declare a time limit on all the elections they want, and get on with their war agenda with Iran and North Korea. (“If you liked Iraq, you’ll LOVE what comes next.”)
What we're about to experience is the re-confederation of America. No, not pre-Civil War style, but kind of like the Balkans before, well, . . . you know. Some people in California have advocated secession for years, what with our economy being the 5th largest in the world. We could seal off the borders for a few days, stake claim to all the military bases, utilities and financial institutions, and we have our own country, the size of California.
New York claims to be the center of the Universe anyway, so they'll do just fine, maybe hooking up with Jersey and Connecticut to keep the commute simple. Going through Customs when you're already late for work contributes to the kind of road rage that carries over to the workplace. So let's not subdivide the great megapolis.
Some of the Great Lakes states have entered discussion to become Canadian provinces, and people in Michigan's Upper Peninsula think they're Canuks anyway, so they might as well. The Lower Peninsula will stay in the Confederation so the football rivalries won't be disturbed. University of Michigan vs.Wilfred Lauriet just doesn't make the average football fan salivate.
The rest of the states could organize co-ops along the lines of how major college sports conferences used to be before superconsolidation. Certain SEC states could fly the stars and bars again if they so choose, though we take a dim view of such sentiments. The Big 10 states can organize a Great Lakes maritime monopoly.
Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Montana have the same weather as Canada anyway, so we could trade Ottawa those states in exchange for the parts of Ontario and Quebec that Americans like to visit. I know we're trading Mt. Rushmore for Niagara Falls, but, this is the 21st Century and it's a brave new world out here -- Get used to it!
Come to think of it, Texas was originally a Mexican province. Do you think . . . naaaa, Poppa Bush would never go for it. He doesn't love his "little brown ones" THAT much.
Now don't anyone get excited and try to charge me with sedition. I'm not advocating any particular ideology or agenda. I'm not advocating the overthrow of the federal government; we're just not going to have one anymore because all of the Republican attacks on “big gomment” and “fedalism” have rendered it moot. It was a great run, but the Republicans in Florida and Texas loused it up and now it's over. So don't blame me.
To many, states’ rights were a great thing when it involved freedom to practice brutal and exclusionary racism. But states’ rights aren’t such a great thing when it involves states enacting their own laws about pesky things like cleaner emission standards, medical marijuana and the right to run their own education system without the “No Child Left Inside” Act. This was the real deal behind that act; end public education by setting impossible standards and then not providing the funding to meet the requirements. Then Bush Jr. and his education secretary can say, “Sorry, you didn’t meet the requirements; the school is closed, everybody outside.”
So, we’re ending this states’ rights controversy before it gets even more bent out of shape. Now the states have all the rights they want and no damn “big gomment” to louse things up.
We've still got the Constitution to serve as a legal and governmental spine for the Confederated States. And FedEx and UPS will still be in business, even if the Postal Service won't know what to do when the spam hits the fan.
It's nothing to get bent out of shape over, just part of the New World Order, that's all. You know, the one controlled by a consortium of Jewish Bankers, Texas Oilmen, Georgia Real Estate Tycoons and Lena Wertmueller. The usual suspects.
So hold on to those old stars and stripes; they'll be worth something someday.