Yes, We Can!
The League of the South
For months Americans have been saturated with news of the Presidential race. It’s impossible not to pay it some heed, even if you feel as we do that it’s all a cynical charade. When asked, as inevitably we are, “Who’s the best choice?” we’re forced to reply, “None of the above.” Or more to the point, “It really doesn’t make any difference.”
Still, we admit it has been an unusual campaign. “Junior Super Tuesday” has just produced two remarkable turnarounds. Six months ago John McCain was broke, laying off key staff, and his Presidential prospects were deemed hopeless. Now he’s the Republican nominee. In like manner Hillary Clinton was given up for lost after Senator Obama’s eleven straight primary victories. But he failed to land the knockout punch and lost to her unexpectedly in Ohio and Texas. She’s baaaaaack. The race for the Democratic nomination may go down to the wire at the convention this summer.
Senators McCain and Clinton are both testaments to perseverance, but we can’t decide whether to indulge a natural grudging admiration for their super-human, underdog efforts or to be appalled at their boundless, consuming ambition. For be not deceived — as the great Southern wit H.L. Mencken observed, “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
Barack Obama still leads Hillary in pledged delegates. The possibility can’t be dismissed that he will become America’s first black President – if you discount Bill Clinton, that is. This is remarkable not just because he’s black, but also because his victory would represent the ultimate triumph of style over substance. His music video, “Yes, We Can!” with its parade of A-List celebrities and hopeful message has revolutionized the way politics is done, motivated tens of thousands, and raised tens of millions in campaign cash. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY). It’s reassuring when Obama and his myrmidons tell us, Yes, We Can. But the video doesn’t even ask, much less answer: we can do what, exactly?
Nevertheless, Senator Obama’s oratory is inspiring, if empty. He’s poised, intelligent, and clearly comfortable in his own skin, while Hillary makes your skin crawl. He trumps her with unstudied ease, revealing her as the shrill, hectoring harridan we all know she is. Whether it’s her tears or her grating cackle, her words and gestures seem calculated and false. George Orwell’s Big Brother of 1984 is bad enough, but can you imagine anything worse than Big Sister? We’re fascinated to observe how Left-wing identity politics is going to sort this one out; for whose official victim status takes precedence, the African-American or the woman?
What does Obama really stand for, besides his vaunted “change?” By what principles would he govern if elected? This brings us back to our opening thought. The only change Obama or Clinton or McCain embody is the change that has been going on steadily ever since Father Abraham destroyed the Old Republic with his war of aggression against the people and States of the South. He set in motion an inexorable assault on the liberties of all the American people, starting with us Southerners. He launched the rise of an oppressive state that overturned the constitutional republic of 1789 with its limits on the powers of the central government. The campaign of 2008 is the culmination of that process, the realization of socialism or ‘soft’ Marxism. It’s the consolidation of an all-powerful Empire no longer bound by checks and balances, subject only to its own will as the final judge of its authority. Election day in November 2008 will see an even stronger “unitary Executive,” a President who is above the law and can make sweeping life-or-death decisions that involve the whole country, on his own and without accountability.
None of the three lead players in this squalid spectacle have said anything about this threat to our liberty; they embrace it. They’ve said nothing honest and true about the many crises bearing down on us like a tsunami, converging economic and foreign problems so dire and so numerous that space doesn’t permit us to catalogue them. Their campaigns are all about increasing the scope and power of the state. All three are committed to continuing America’s disastrous imperial enterprise, which will give us more war, globalism, and socialism; or as Robert E. Lee foresaw after Appomattox, an empire that would be “…aggressive abroad and despotic at home.” Even Obama’s much-touted posture as the anti-war candidate is exaggerated. When Bill Clinton described it as a “fairy tale,” for once in his life he spoke the truth. So, whether it’s Queen Jezebel, Barack O’Bomber, or Bomber McCain, it doesn’t seem to make much difference to us.
Congressman Ron Paul, whom we admire for his vision and courage, has been totally ignored or ridiculed as a crackpot. Ditto for Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and Ralph Nader. Ron Paul is living proof that when a slick set of lies has been sold to the masses generation after generation, the truth seems utterly preposterous and its speaker a madman — or worse, a traitor, since truth is treason in an empire of lies. The blackout and suppression of dissenting candidates reminds us of the old proverb, “If voting could really change anything, it would be illegal.”
But even if by some miracle the good doctor were to be elected, does anyone think he could restore the Constitution and the Old Republic? He may be a fine physician, but even he can’t resurrect a corpse. Let’s face facts – the Old Republic of a free self-governing people under a Constitution that limits the central state and guarantees the God-given liberties of the people is dead. Dead, dead, dead.
All Americans, but we Southerners in particular, are now brought to a sorry pass — faced with choices that are virtually indistinguishable and equally horrendous. The GOP of course wants Hillary to win; they believe McCain will run better against her. You can see it shaping up again, as clear as Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football. The Republican Establishment expects to appeal to us once again to “Vote for the lesser of two evils!” It has worked so well in the past, especially with us Southerners. They scare us with the prospects of a Democratic win, and we line up like sheep and march bleating into the polls while the GOP apparatchiks smirk and grin behind their hands. The more loyal we are, the more they despise us.
Until recent years, until the dark days of Dubya, they hadn’t worried that we’d catch on. However, now we’re beginning to get it. The GOP’s stewardship of government has been so wretched and contemptible that the prospect of the Democrats doesn’t scare us quite so badly any more. We’re like children who’ve come to see that the bogeyman used to terrify us into obedience doesn’t really exist.
Hillary or Obama in the White House will no doubt behave with the same criminal folly as Bush has, although it’s hard to see how they could be worse. But the GOP is no longer an alternative. It’s not a true choice; it represents no genuine or principled opposition to the limitless state and its criminal abuses and usurpations. In fact, the GOP is now arguably the worst proponent and enabler of the Empire. Dubya has done far more damage to our liberty and prosperity than Bill Clinton ever did, and more than Al Gore could likely have done had he been elected in 2000.
We Southerners must understand today’s GOP is merely the outcome of the classic dialectical process, in which two opposing ideas, thesis and antithesis, clash and then interact to produce an outcome called a synthesis. Conservatives, and especially us Southerners, have a genetic pre-disposition to defend the status quo, any status quo. So the cycle keeps repeating itself, with yesterday’s synthesis becoming today’s thesis. Conservatives, even in the act of “winning” (as they falsely believe) get co-opted into defending the last synthesis that’s now the new status quo. The enemy takes up a new position even further to the Left as their new antithesis. The dialectical process spins again and produces a new increment of progress toward subjugation, national socialism, and Empire.
This election cycle represents the near-final triumph of the dialectic, which is another name for choosing the lesser of two evils. The dialectic has brought us to where there’s no longer any real distinction between the candidates. The presumed differences have been blurred beyond recognition. The two parties no longer represent genuine alternatives but are simply rivals for power, two sides of the same (counterfeit) coin.
We who understand this, who see the game is rigged, and rigged to always favor the Empire, must opt out of it and seek another paradigm. That paradigm is an end to the vast, unitary Empire, which is collapsing of its own folly and corruption in any case. Why not get off the sinking ship and into the lifeboats? Why not Southern liberty? Why not Southern independence?
We must no longer let Those People fool us into playing this rigged game through their litany of threats and dangers. The greatest threat to our freedom and way of life is no longer external; it’s our own government. If we let the Regime continue to terrify us, we forfeit the hope of ever fixing things in the long term. Always taking the short view forecloses any future hope of breaking out of this self-made trap, of which the hinges are fear. Why do we Southerners who pride ourselves on our courage, not to mention our stubbornness and independence, put up with it? Why do we let fear mongering stampede us like cattle? Are we so timid and pusillanimous? Or are we not the spiritual heirs of Patrick Henry and George Washington, and Francis Marion; of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Bedford Forrest?
We are not helpless, despite the Regime’s constant efforts to make us believe we are. First, we have the truth; or by God’s grace, some truth. Then, we have our minds, our discernment, our knowledge, our determination, and our voices. These are formidable if we’ll employ them together. Third, we have courage, or if we lack it we can dip into the surplus deeded down by our Southern ancestors. Fourth, we have sovereignty, limited though it may be, which is control over our own immediate sphere, including our time, resources, to some extent our children; and above all, the individual choices we make. That is, we have control over how and to whom we give our consent, our compliance, our obedience. We can give it or withhold it.
Withholding consent is a principle of enormous potential power, yet neglected and little understood. Even a tyranny depends upon a sufficient number of its subjects giving their consent. If enough of us withdraw it and refuse to cooperate, this criminal Regime can’t continue to oppress and exploit us. It’s the strongest weapon we possess, especially in an election year. The most effective way to withdraw our consent is to withhold our vote en masse, dramatizing that we Southerners no longer ascribe any moral authority to the Regime. We should of course vote for local and State offices and participate as good citizens of our respective States in those races (and encourage voting only for pro-South candidates).
This principle has great moral force, as the early Irish Republicans, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and many others have demonstrated. Moral force in the end can outweigh the naked political and military force of the Empire. It draws power from truth and clarity and gives us something meaningful to do rather than remaining docile, helpless victims.
Do we even need to say this program is aimed primarily at the McCainiacs, Bushites, and the GOP? They are our principal enemy because they more than the Democrats keep our natural Southern instincts for liberty thwarted by lies and imprisoned in the dialectic. And the dialectic enlists our people in the service of a lawless Regime who by tradition and history ought to be on the side of truth, morality, and liberty.
The pundits and shills of the Regime are always telling us, “If you don’t vote you can’t complain about the outcome.” Actually, the reverse is true. If you do participate in the sham Presidential election, you have no logical right to complain because taking part means you concede the process is legitimate. Only the person who withholds his vote can dissent, because only he has challenged the validity of the fraudulent process.
The Presidential race is like the stage act of a magician who keeps us distracted with his sleight-of-hand while the real action takes place somewhere else. No matter who wins, the fundamental result is always the same, to advance the power of the Regime and lead us steadily downward to dependency and servitude — to perdition.
Can we walk away from this corrupt fraud designed to keep us deluded and enslaved? Yes, We Can.
Can we Southerners take responsibility for ourselves, our liberty, our prosperity? Yes, We Can.
Can we few Southern patriots, without resources, ignored, ridiculed, and vilified, but with courage and principle and dedicated to liberty, really make a difference? Yes, We Can.
Traditional party politics won’t save us. Indeed, it’s part of the problem, part of what keeps us from seeing clearly and acting soundly. But can we save ourselves? Yes, We Can. If We Will.
