No, the Civil War is NOT Over. In fact, the South is slowly winning.

Sorry to break it to you, Gentle Reader, but somebody had to. For all the orthodox history saying that the Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox, they have in fact continued fighting for segregation, class stratification, and other key Confederate values.

The most obvious example was the large number of Jim Crow laws imposed upon black Americans after the South “surrendered”. Pretty much slavery without the costs of feeding, housing, and clothing the oppressed black workers and their families. Apartheid, American style.

Then came the Civil Rights Movement. We made some progress then, no doubt about it. But starting in the 1980’s, the NeoConfederates have slowly and systematically worked to restore their white-supremacist system, and in fact spread it to other, non-Confederate states.

Undoing affirmative action? Check.
Rolling back voting rights for Persons of Color? Check.
Lower wages paid to black workers than whites? Check.

All of this indicates a non-coincidental trend. It is a deliberate effort to re-fight the Civil War, albeit without obvious military force. And it is succeeding. Here’s one tiny example:

Once upon a time in the Oughts, your humble correspondent had a girlfriend from a foreign country, and she traveled to America to visit, meet the family, see the sights, and so on. She really wanted to see the South, and so we spent some time there. During that sojourn, we stopped at one of Georgia’s state universities to look at dinosaur bones, and wandered into a historical exhibit about the “War of Northern Aggression” (indeed, it was thus labeled) and how bad it was for the formerly-contented slaves. This in an accredited, state-chartered university.

That was a shocker. A government-funded institution teaching and spreading lies about the Civil War. She was shocked, and so was B & C.

Since that incident knocked the scales off the eyeballs, it has become ever more apparent that the Reagan Revolution included a strong racist, neo-Secessionist component. But instead of leaving the Union, the South has decided to take the over the whole damned country.

We are still at war with the forces of racist evil, friends. And we are losing.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Of COURSE People of Color Don’t Trust Cops. They Have no Reason to Trust Cops.

And lots of reasons not to. It isn’t a recent phenomenon that started with white officers killing black men in Ferguson, Staten Island or Cleveland: it goes back to the days of slavery, when the authorities enforced the laws by catching escaped slaves and forcibly returing them to the slave owners. It continued through the post-Civil-War era as police were used to enforce Jim Crow laws that kept people of color (POC) in another set of “chains”.

And did the Civil Rights laws of the 60’s fix things? Oh, Hell no. The cops were used to “keep order” among the minority population and protect the white folks from said minorities. Once again, the cops were and are the visible face of oppression, and the means used to oppress the non-white people of America.

Asians are likewise POC, and they deal with a lot of crap from cops as well: immigration, profiling, harassment, civil rights violations, etc. You think anybody in their communities have forgotten the World War Two internment camps? Here’s a hint, boyo: they haven’t. And who put them into the camps? Armed people in uniforms put them in those camps. Cops (and soldiers, in that case).

How about Latinos? POC they are as well, and they have likewise dealt with a history of abuse and marginalization. And yes, once again the cops were the instrument of that extra-constitutional mistreatment.

It didn’t start with Michael Brown, or even John Brown. It won’t end with a single grand jury indictment, or even several indictments. As the Prexy has said, the system can’t function if POC don’t trust that justice will be delivered in an impartial manner.

Speaking as a (formerly long-haired) hippie freak, this writer doesn’t place blind trust in the cops or those for whom they work. Comes from having been harassed, profiled, roughed up, shaken down, and driven to city boundaries with guns enforcing the officers’ orders to “Git, and never come back” on more than one occasion. Being “othered” while looking at the wrong end of a gun makes an indelible impression on a person.

But you know what made the Cranky life a lot easier? Baldness. Cops can no longer discern my political views by a glance. Indeed, a somewhat portly middle-aged white man is rarely targeted by the cops. But…

Black people can’t wash off their pigment. Nor can other people of color. They can never, ever be free of the institutionalized violence and abuse that is routinely heaped upon minorities. Their skin color makes them a target. They know it. Cops know it.

When everybody knows the system is rigged, nobody can believe in the system. We are living in a crumbling edifice, built upon a history of xenophobia and racist hatred. Unless we all get together and build a foundation that truly aligns with the notion that we are created equal, the whole American experiment will fall apart, ending in blood and ashes.

Trust is needed. Right now POC don’t trust the system. And lots of white people are deciding we don’t trust it either. Police of America, it’s time to decide who you work for, and to earn back the trust we need you to deserve.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The Stars and Bars is the flag of Treason and Sedition, NOT Patriotism.

Enough, already. You can argue all you want about whether the Civil War was about slavery, Northern aggression, cultural differences, economic imperialism, blahblahblahbittyBLAHblah; but the war itself was the act of traitors to the United States of America. Period. Read the Constitution if you don’t believe it.

And the stars and bars are the flag of the army that fought in favor of treason, sedition, and other crimes against the Constitution. Regardless of your political feelings, that is what the flag stood for. It was not a flag that extolled the virtues of biscuits and gravy, gumbo or other truly excellent bits of Southern culture: it was the flag carried by those who wanted to burn, murder and rape in the service of their mission to overthrow a legitimately elected government.

So, if you consider yourself an “American Patriot”, just WTF are you doing, displaying the Stars and Bars?

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

150 Years Ago, The Battle of Gettysburg Started. Today, Some Americans are So S*** Stupid, They Want Another Civil War.

The Battle of Gettysburg was an example of Stupid America at its stupidest: a load of greedy, narrow-minded, ideological, partisan s***sacks decided to wage war on the other half of the country so they could be free to oppress a group of people (slaves, in that case). In the end, those the Confederates wanted to enslave won their freedom, the Yanks beat the Rebels’ asses like a drum, and a lot of innocent schmucks got their lives ruined or ended: all so a bunch of fat cats could get even fatter at the expense of their constituents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg

But just in case you think America has gotten over its affliction of Stupid Syndrome, you should know that we have a new and even dumber load of greedy, narrow-minded, ideological, partisan s***sacks who want to, yep, wage war on the rest of us so as to be able to oppress a group of people (broadly speaking, anyone who is not a while male Dominionist “Christian” “Republican”). Then as now, these people are treasonous, anti-American scumbuckets who want to overthrow our government. And then as now, all too many of us are not paying attention.

Here, in their own words, you can read their call to arms. And this is a literal call to arms – they mean to grab weapons and start killing people so as to make America into a theocracy. Don’t believe the Cranky One? Read these quotes from David Lane, an adviser to Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Rand Paul:

“You ask, “What is our goal?” To wage war to restore America to our Judeo-Christian heritage with all of our might and strength that God will give us.”

Or perhaps you’d prefer some Peter J. Leithart:

“If America is to be put in its place – put right – Christians must risk martyrdom and force Babel to the crux where it has to decide either to acknowledge Jesus an imperator and the church as God’s imperium or to begin drinking holy blood.”

Yes, that’s right: these “Republicans” want to force you to “drink holy blood”. And lots of you voted for them. Lots of you will vote for them AGAIN. That is Stupid America raised to levels of stupidity hitherto unimagined.

Today we should remember the brave Civil War soldiers who were killed on behalf of ideological extremists who had built their fortunes of the bones of people they had enslaved. Ask yourselves this question: what is the best way to honor their sacrifice? Is it:

Number A: repeating the errors of the past by launching a second civil war and attempting to overthrow a duly constituted government, or

Letter 2: coming together as a nation by rejecting these calls for violence, inequality, hatred, treason and wholesale bloodshed.

This writer picks the second option, and hopes you will also.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Lying Sack of S*** of The Week: Jim Porter

And who, you might ask, is Jim Porter? Why, he is the new Big Boss Gun Nut of the NRA. And a few of his truly epic lies (as well as his evident barking madness) can be found here.

Quite aside from his bulls*** validation of treasonous behavior (he thinks the South was right to secede in the 1800’s, for example), this nutjob says that the reason the NRA exists is to teach each and every one of us “the use of the standard military firearm”.

Really? Standard military firearms include automatic rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, and other such weapons. Many of which are illegal, per the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court.

So, apparently, this jackass thinks the NRA was founded in order to do illegal, seditious acts, and to teach us all to do likewise. What the NRA usually says is that they are helping to preserve our Constitutional rights. So, either the NRA’s been lying about its mission for a good few years, or Mr. Porter has earned his Crown O’ Polished Turds. This writer thinks it is the latter.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

How to Turn the Inevitable into Evitable

As Mr. Blunt and Cranky has been ranting all week, we in America are in danger of a revolutionary civil war so horrifying, it would put Edgar Allen Poe off his lunch.  Said conflict seeming inevitable due to the determined lack of action amongst America’s new (and not entirely Constitutional) ruling class of Politicians, Plutocrats and Pundits (three buckets of Pee running the country. And we wonder why things stink).

There are things we, the citizens of the United States can do to make this an “evitable” conflict. Simple things that require us to open our hearts and minds, work together, and stick to our task. Things that, alas, we have not been doing of late:

Thing Number A: Recognize that we are being played. Taken for a ride. Conned. Used like a crack whore at a biker party. Yep, that’s America in 2012: the Three Pees have been doing all that and more to us for decades now, and until we admit it to ourselves, we cannot do anything about it. Our media is largely comprised of biased, fact-challenged profit-centered pundits, and far too many of us listen and believe without question. Our employers are piling up cash that they have removed from our paychecks, pensions and benefits. Our elected “representatives” are mostly bought-and-paid-for tools of whichever lobbyist has the biggest wads of cash.  All of these people are screwing us, laughing behind their faces the while.

Almost NONE of our major institutions currently have the best interests of the American People at heart. Until you accept this reality, you are trapped.

Thing Letter Two: Money has infiltrated and corrupted virtually every institution in America. That means only people with money get what they want. And since most of us don’t have lots of money, the majority of taxpaying Americans get bupkis for our contributions to the system. We need to yank the snouts of our Politicos out of the money troughs in which they currently grunt and snuffle. We need to demand that our media give us fact-based news coverage by taking away the profit motive that currently drives the “content” we are being fed. We need to insist that people earn a living wage: that alone could take a big bite out of the deficit, as well as helping to stabilize our society.

Thing The Third: Hold our “Representatives” to account. Currently, we keep re-electing these slimeballs regardless of how corrupt they are, how they screw us, and how little they accomplish. If the electorate would simply vote out the worst of the bunch, that would help “induce” the remainder to, you know, actually work for us for a change.

None of the above ideas is rocket science; in fact, they are not original. They are things we all say we should be doing. But we haven’t been doing them, and since we have been lazy, things are rapidly heading towards an increasingly bleak and potentially nation-wrecking crisis. But if we actually do the needful, we can turn that “inevitable” cataclysm into a renewed, strong, peaceful and prosperous nation.

Mr. B & C

Another Inevitable Conflict ? (If the American Ruling Class Doesn’t Get a Clue, We Will All Be F***ed)

As an avowed Radical Centrist and student of history, Mr. Blunt and Cranky is of the belief that no revolution is “inevitable”. Looking at example after example throughout time, we can see that if Leader So-and-So had paid attention and done the needful, Revolution XYZ need not have occurred.  As Isaac Asimov phrased it, conflicts can be “evitable”.

Such was the case in the French Revolution: the monarchy was informed by their ministers and experts of the steps that had to be taken to avert catastrophe, but said royals did not take the required actions. Result: a very bloody and damaging revolution that killed and despoiled the innocent along with the guilty. Read up on the Terror to see how bad things got at that time.

Bad as that was, a breakdown in 21^st-century America would be far worse. Reasons:

Number A: At the beginning of the French Revolution, there was a clear pair of sides – the 1% of the day, versus everybody else. Not so in 2012 America; we are fractured across lines of ethnicity, religion, income, geography and culture. If things go to Hell, we will find ourselves in a confusing, cluster-f***ed multi-sided conflict that would make our previous Civil War look tame by comparison.

Letter 2: Not that many people in 18^th-century France had firearms, and those they did have were primitive. Modern Americans own millions of sophisticated weapons. Add in related hardware and other supplies, and it is clear that we can pretty much kill anyone and everyone in the nation if we think we “have to”.

Thirdly: We live in a society that is more interconnected than any other in the history of Earth. Our banking, food, shelter, safety, transportation, health care; these and many more essential elements of modern life are dependent on a stable society. Any breakdown in society would cause us to lose the most basic tools we need to secure the essentials of life. That means that millions upon millions of us would die.

And this need not happen. Our new ruling class of Politicians, Plutocrats and Pundits (a load of Pee, as it were) may be too stubborn, vain, stupid, narcissistic, greedy and deliberately myopic to see beyond the next media cycle, but We The People have the power to change things. Power vested in us by the Constitution.  No guns required.

Folks, it is just this simple: if we keep our heads buried in the sand, our asses will be kicked in. Only by pulling our heads out and working together can we avoid yet another “evitable” revolution.

Tomorrow: some peaceful, bipartisan actions we could take to save our national a**es.

Mr. B & C

The Constitution is Not a Buffet Lunch

Mr. Blunt and Cranky loves hitting the buffet line for meals. He can pick what he likes and leave what he dislikes (cholesterol and sodium content taken into account, of course [in case his doctors read his blog]) to place upon his plate. Lots of green leafies, lean meats, spicy stuff; and cheese, oh yeah, gotta have the cheese. Yum.

Of course, what works for his belly does not work for everything. When it comes to the law, few of us would have much luck with the constabulary if we picked and chose which laws to violate and which to obey. But it is a favored pursuit among some wingnuts when the Constitution is on the menu.

Case in point, Number A: The Loony Lefties who want to ban guns in the United States, and conveniently downplay the Second Amendment. Sorry, Chuckles, the Constitution is an all-or nothing package deal. You don’t like it, buy yourselves an island and start your own country.

Case in point, Letter 2: the Raging Righties who want to discard most of the post-Civil-War amendments and go back to the old version of the Constitution that, well, helped to enable the Civil War. It might sound logical to the Uptightie Whities, but this writer would prefer that we not have another such conflict, especially in an era of nuclear and chemical weapons. See above note regarding islands.

The Founders were a bright bunch overall, and knew that their work might need updated in the future; thus the amendment process. Anybody who wants an amendment can work to get one through the process. It ain’t easy, but it has been done, more than a few times so far. They did not, however, provide an option for selective application of the Constitution. One more example of their smarts, one which also provides an example of how dumb a lot of extremists are these days.

We live in a nation of laws. This citizen would prefer some laws be removed from the books, but recognizes that the Constitution and laws that are derived therefrom cannot be ignored. Unlike the three-bean salad at the salad bar- that stuff is nasty, and this buffetphiliac gives it a wide berth.

Mr. B & C