The frenzy to rename bases and tear down bronzes of Confederate Generals supposedly will rid us of our racist legacy. But it will never succeed unless the greatest monument of all, The United States Senate, is thrown on the trash heap too.
As we’ll see again in next week’s impeachment folly, there is no check or balance on the executive. This quaint 18th century notion that appealing to the integrity of a jury of Senators will somehow render a just decision has no basis in modern reality. The jurors in the upcoming Senate trial are nothing more than partisan self-preservationists whose allegiances go to the highest bidder.
The Senate was devised to be the saucer that cooled the scorching tea in the House of Representative’s cup. Instead, it’s been the deep freeze storage that has cracked and shattered the entire porcelain tea service.
Lovers of the Constitution, i.e. beltway insiders, extoll its beauty. Like the drop dead gorgeous Electoral College. By granting electors based on Senate representation, it gives equal footing to all states and disenfranchises millions. A small state like Wyoming (population 500,000) will receive two electors as will a large state like California (population 40,000,000). This gimmick was devised to empower Southern states so they’d join the fight against Mother Britain and stay in the union.
Then there’s the pulchritude of the 14th and 15th Amendments. With a wink, nod and all is forgiven to the Confederacy, as soon the amendments passed the Senate masterminded Jim Crow laws to neuter them. As further insurance they created the absurd filibuster rule that has enshrined the role of special interests over the will of the people ever since. All this to placate southerners. Why?
When we watch clips of the Civil Rights demonstrations in the 1950’s and 60’s there is always an expression of insane viciousness on the faces of the whites taunting blacks and protestors. This is not the contretemps of a neighbor’s tree shedding leaves in the yard. Or the tenants in 3B playing their music too loud. There’s a bloodthirstiness to these demonically possessed that is horrifying. And then the imagery just stops.
Was the Civil Rights Act so effective it wiped out racism in the South? Or did the media just stop covering the veiny neck visuals. What became of the children and grandchildren of these livid whites? Emotional traits running this deeply don’t just dissipate from a culture.
The descendants of those with the Mad Magazine contorted faces eschewed physical violence for the most part. It just wasn’t marketable. In its place they substituted the smiling faces that provided a more appealing cover for the economic and social oppression they levied on non-whites. And they joined the Republican Party. The fate of the Constitution now lies in their hands.
All the South has ever contributed to the national experience is racial hatred, gin blossoms and a rigged College Football Bowl system. There is Tennessee Williams, of course, but that is not nearly enough to offset the other three,
It’s time for states in New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Great Lakes, and the Pacific Regions to secede from the Union and merge with Canada. Leave the inbred wingnuts of Dixie and the Fruitless Plains to perfect their barbecue sauces, gun worship and schizoid conspiracy theories.
To foster unity amongst the peoples of this new republic I’m proposing a national sport called Hockbasey. It will combine the rules and, presumably, playing surfaces of Hockey and Baseball. Still thinking it through. The design and production of reinforced sticks that can double as bats has begun. Saskatoon Sluggers are scheduled to roll off production lines starting in early 2022.
250 years of pandering to beady-eyed ignorance is quite enough. It’s time to give our neighbors to the north and their resentment of the French a chance.
In my late teens my Granddad came up with a new nickname for me. He started to call me Senator. I’d like to think it was a tribute to my sense of fairness and the practical approach I used to accomplish things.
In retrospect, it was probably because he recognized a conniving opportunist whose fragile ego needed the constant reinforcement of hollow mass approval. The one thing missing in my life has been the lack of bidders to sell out to, high or low.
Alas, the highest rank I’ve ever risen to is the Royal Order of the DQELC (Drag Queen with an Extremely Limited Celebrity). But life isn’t over yet.
Feinstein is 87 and can’t hang on too much longer..