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Crackers Then; Crackers Now
BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by Dan DeLisio
The recent revelations that the Vice Chairman of the California Republican Party, Bill Back, a close ally of Bush, circulated, with approbation, an email news bulletin to fellow Republicans containing an article which wishfully pined for a scenario under which the South would have won is yet more evidence that the true ideological allegiance of the modern Republican Party's leadership is to the CSA, not the USA. Essentially these prominent Republicans are stating, in not so subtle terms, with their public embrace of the Confederacy and Strom that they wish that the perverted agenda of slavery and segregation had been maintained. Trent just stated publicly what most of them apparently are thinking and, as Mr. Back's newsletter email suggests, are apparently discussing privately.
Despite the obvious ludicrousness of engaging in the folly of embracing perverted, racist, historically repudiated ideologies, these Republicans are also demonstrating their ignorance of American history. They incessantly rail against the alleged "evils" of the Federal Government which they accuse of heavy handed trampling of the rights of the states; however, one of the chief reasons that the Confederacy decided to secede from the Union was the fact that the Federal Government refused to forcibly enforce the odious "Fugitive Slave Act" which required states to repatriate escaped slaves to their masters in slaveholding states. Northern States refused to do so and the Southern States wanted the Federal Government to use its authority to compel Northern States to do so, even if it meant the use of Federal Troops and other draconian, unconstitutional measures. As much as they later professed to detest the allegedly oppressive Federal Government they were quite eager to use its power to force recalcitrant states into line in order to further their economic interests, which, after all, was the sole impetus for their fanatical desire to maintain the institution of slavery in the first place.
Of course, the utter hypocrisy of the bankrupt and hollow ideology of the original Confederates continues to this day among the modern neo-Confederate adherents found in the top ranks of the Republican Party. Modern neo-confederates like Ashcroft, and his band of merry Jefferson Davis ideologues, want the power of the Federal Government to be used to enforce policies that they champion, no matter how ill-conceived they are (i.e., arresting medicinal marijuana users and threatening doctors with imprisonment who assist terminally patients in ending their suffering, even though both measures are perfectly legal under the laws of California and Oregon, which laws the citizenry of both states approved overwhelmingly through the processes of democratic government).
"States rights" is, for these latter day Jefferson Davis-ites, an ideological refuge of hollow convenience which they retreat to whenever they wish to derail any Federal law beneficial to average Americans if it even minutely impinges on their unfettered desire for rapacious economic plunder. They abhor, for economic reasons, the landmark legal protections which were afforded average citizens in the Civil Rights Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and wish to see these laws gutted under the pretense of preserving states rights under the tenth amendment. Despite the fact that all of these aforementioned acts of Congress are perfectly constitutional exercises of Federal power which have protected and furthered the rights of every individual American and greatly improved their lives; to the neo-Confederates at the top levels of the modern day Republican Party, laws that enrich the lives of average Americans are to be viewed as more threatening to our republic than the morally repellent institutions of slavery and segregation. It is not a question of morality to these ideological Confederate worshipers in the top Republican ranks, but, as it was with the slaveholders of the ante-bellum south, purely a matter of personal monetary enrichment.
Dan
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
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Sources:
GOP's
state vice chairman in hot water
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/4873488.htm
The
original Confederacy article that the Vice Chairman of the California
Republican Party circulated:
http://members.aol.com/mdgreyrider/wrcsawon.htm
The
Fugitive Slave Act
http://www.usconstitution.net/fslave.html
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