Wow!  I tell ya, guys and gals, I couldn’t have planned this little TEA party tax protest and the resultant secession talk any better if I had tried. 

Hundreds, if not thousands of people are angry about the way their tax money is being wasted on bailout progams and CEO / executive bonuses, and Fox News Channel personalities apparently helped organize these TEA (Taxed Enough Already) parties nationwide.  Conservative talk radio is fanning the flames with overheated rhetoric, and

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If that wasn’t enough, Texas governor Rick Perry mentioned that Texas might have to hitch up its horse and go find another nation to be a part of.  See the New York Times quote below (1):

It has long been part of Texas folk mythology that because the state was once an independent republic, it has the option of seceding. But historians and law professors say there has been no serious argument since the Civil War on behalf of a legal basis for a state’s secession.

Like many other Texans, however, Mr. Perry still treats leaving the Union as a possibility.

“When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “My hope is that America, and Washington in particular, pay attention. We’ve got a great Union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that?”

Who knows what may come of that?  We know what happens, Governor Perry!  620,000 Americans died the last time states followed up with that threat.  The federal government won that fight in 1865 and left the losers devastated for at least a generation and millions impoverished and African Americans living in a Jim Crow nation for almost 100 years. 

Sorry if I’m going off on a little rant here, but what Gov. Perry is doing is pandering to the right wing in his home state of Texas.  It’s going to be reelection time soon, and he is getting some serious pressure from current Texas U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson for the Republican nomination.  So, here he is capitalizing on some anti-DC rhetoric and sentiment in order to pander for votes.  Well, the same thing – partisanship – helped split the nation apart back in the 1850s – South vs. North.  Whig vs. Democrat.  Republican vs. Democrat. 

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Question: Can you see this kind of partisanship lead to more talk of secession?  Why or why not? 

We’ve had two impeachment proceedings within the past 35 years (one for Nixon -R, one for Clinton -D), and the party in charge of Congress has swung back and forth a couple of times in the past 20 years.   There has been bitter fighting between the parties over many things since Watergate, and it hasn’t let up since. 

150 words minimum. 

Sources:  1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/us/politics/18texas.html?ref=global-home ;

2. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2201/2082795663_5fbb3bc985_o.jpg 

3. http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090417/us_time/08599189182900 

4. http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/if-at-first-you-dont-secede/ 

5. http://www.mercedsunstar.com/216/story/794898.html 

This idea has been floating around in my head since last summer ever since I watched the HBO miniseries about John Adams John Adams (highly recommended – check it out at the link to the right!).  I had wondered how we would see/view something like the Boston Tea Party in a modern context.

Would these modern-day Sons of Liberty be seen as attractive rebels to emulate like those of the past?  Or would they be viewed as subversive radicals bent on destroying the foundation of American society?  Might it depend upon what they do?  If they killed people in their protest instead of just destroying property, then that might be a line that cannot be crossed. 

 During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s association with a former fugitive and radical student leader, William Ayers was called into question.  Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (as was his wife, another fugitive from the same radical student group called the Weather Underground), but had been a fugitive on the run for 10 years after being implicated in several bombing plots.  Ayers and his Weathermen cohorts felt that the student radicals weren’t doing enough to stop the Vietnam War, so more radical action was needed like the bombings of statues and buildings in 1969 and 1970.  After April 1970, the FBI issued a warrant for the Weathermen’s arrest, so Ayers and his future wife disappeared until 1980 when they turned themselves in.  Their cases were tossed out of court for insufficient evidence. 

 Today, Ayers teaches college students how to be teachers.  In fact, a documentary on the Weather Underground examined the lives of 6 of them and 1/2 of them are college professors.  But his connection to Barack Obama was that the president began his political career by having an informal fundraiser at the Ayers’ household.  Also, Obama and Ayers sat on a board of directors together for the Annenburg Foundation, a prestigious organization dedicated to education that also included several Republicans. 

To quote the Chicago Sun-Times:

In the mid-1990s, Ayers and Dohrn hosted a meet-and-greet at their house to introduce Obama to their neighbors during his first run for the Illinois Senate. In 2001, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama’s campaign. Ayers also served alongside Obama between December 1999 and December 2002 on the board of the not-for-profit Woods Fund of Chicago. That board met four times a year, and members would see each other at occasional dinners the group hosted.

In addition, Ayers and Obama interacted occasionally in their roles with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a not-for-profit group charged with spending tens of millions of dollars it obtained through its affiliation with a school-improvement foundation created by late Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg. Obama chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge’s board of directors. Ayers served on the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, which made recommendations to the board on which organizations should get grants. The groups worked on school-reform efforts between 1995 and 2000.

Democrats first used this information about Ayers in the primaries and then the other side used it once Obama had the nomination wrapped up last summer.  They’ve used it to call Obama a “terrorist” and a Communist – it’s a typical guilt-by-association tactic.   Does it mean Obama supports the radical poitics of the Weathermen?  No.  The same goes for McCain – you can’t judge him by some of his racist supporters either. 

My thoughts: Does yesterday’s rebel equal today’s nostalgic memory?   Is it “once a terrorist, always a terrorist”?   I don’t think we can even avoid using the word “terrorist” today even if the situations are different; after 1995 and the Oklahoma City bombing, it all changed.  The federal building there was blown apart by a home grown terrorist, not by a well-funded cell from a foreign land. 

So, what if John Brown had lived after the raid on Harpers Ferry?  What if the trial had been moved to a northern city or state instead of in Virginia where the raid took place?  He might have gotten a sympathetic jury; or, what if he had escaped?! What if he was on the run for six years like Ayers until the Civil War was over, slavery was outlawed, and the Republicans were in power?  Is it possible Brown would get a lighter sentence or none at all?  Might he be considered one of the heroes of the war alongside General Grant and President Lincoln? 

 Blog question: Should JB be considered a hero / martyr to the cause of slavery or a traitor to the nation for attempting to incite a slave rebellion?  Why?  Does it make a difference that he was hoping to get slaves to fight in this rebellion to fight what he considered to be an unjust and immoral law? 

Due Thursday.  200 words minimum.