A NATION DIVIDED: with some of it controlled by China, as per Igor Panarin. |
"What kind of revolution appeals most to you?" read the now-deleted poll question on Sean Hannity's message board: "Military Coup, Armed Rebellion, or War for Secession?"The next four to eight years are gonna be some fun!
Barely two months into the Obama administration, wing-nuts across the land are frothing at the mouth, talking feverishly of secession, violent revolution, tax revolt, "going Galt," and national divorce. It would be hilarious if it weren't so creepy.
We all had a good laugh this past December when Igor Panarin, dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats, predicted that the financial crisis would eventually lead to widespread unrest, martial law, and, by 2010, a civil war in the US — the end result of which would be a motley collection of rump states like "Atlantic America" and the "Texas Republic," that then glom onto countries such as Canada and Mexico. It's an absurd idea.
Or is it? Perusing some of the sheer insanity spewed on rightist blogs, message boards, and comment threads — the pitchfork-shaking anger directed at this so-called socialist government — one has to wonder just what's percolating in this country. Maybe the big break-up is coming sooner than we think?
Obama talks a lot about his affinity for Abraham Lincoln. Let's just hope he doesn't end up having too much in common with the guy — that in addition to saving the economy, winning two wars, and curbing global warming, he doesn't find himself having to preserve the Union, too.
People are pissed. New faux-populist hero Rick Santelli has been enjoining citizens to register their disgust with the stimulus plan and budget by bombarding the White House and Capitol with tea bags — get it?! (The phenomenon has apparently caused headaches for workers charged with the safety screening of DC mail.) Meanwhile, 4000 people gathered this past Saturday for a so-called "Cincinnati Tea Party." Read one sign: HONK IF I'M PAYING YOUR MORTGAGE.
But protests do only so much. More and more, it seems, nothing less than outright secession will satisfy some of these cranks. The right-wing Web is all atwitter over a recent open letter, spreading from blog to blog like a hanta virus, by one "John J. Wall, Law Student and an American." In it, Wall puts it plainly: he wants a divorce.
"Let's just end it on friendly terms," he writes. "We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. . . . Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA, and the military." (What they'll do with all the guns he doesn't say.)
Ironically, when not busy fomenting revolution or concocting a plan to carve up the continental US, conservatives act a lot like the "hippies" that Wall went on to lambaste in his letter — thumbing their nose at authority and threatening to drop out of society.
It was reported on military.com last month that a soldier, First Lieutenant Scott Easterling, who is stationed in Iraq, has balked at following orders: "Until Mr. Obama releases a 'vault copy' of his original birth certificate for public review," he declared, "I will consider him neither my commander in chief nor my president, but rather, a usurper to the office — an impostor."
And the latest bit of in(s)anity making the rounds in conservative circles in is the notion of "going Galt," in which angry rich people protest Obama's fiscal policies by following the lead of John Galt —übermensch protagonist of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged — and removing their ostensibly valuable productivity from society.
Why? Because "a general strike among the wealth producers," as Michelle Malkin calls it, will help keep that wealth out of the grubby hands of the lower classes — those "moochers who claim your product by tears," in Rand's piquant description. Sigh.
Are we fated to fracture into Jesus Land and the People's Republic of Massafornia? Probably not. But maybe! Until and unless that day arrives, however, ours remains a riven nation. But if Malkin and their ilk want to "drop out" in the meantime, more power to 'em. It'll be nice, frankly, not to have to hear them talk for a while.
