I’ve been utterly intrigued by the secessionist petitions and the news coverage it has received, but really baffled that so few people are deeming it as proof positive of the rampant racism at work in the anti-Obama/anti-America folks.

The Tea Party folks want to pretend that their efforts are linked back to the Revolutionary War and the rebellion that preceded it. Back when the colonists were taxed with no representation. They originally didn’t so much want to be their own country, but rather, simply wanted self governance, or a voice in the governance. If England had granted them representation, everything may have been different. Today, things are different. Every American has a voice and can vote. From the local level, all the way to the Federal level, each and every American’s voice is represented. Today’s folks who call themselves Tea Partiers, or whom I like to call Tea Baggers, and not folks who want representation, but rather, folks who don’t want to participate in a democracy where all voices are heard. They only want their own voices to be heard.  That isn’t democracy, and is sure as hell isn’t why our country came into being.

The states where the greatest secessionist rumblings come from are the same states pretty much who were hell bent on secession over the issue of slavery. There too, the racism was couched in a free market/economic cloak. How dare the Government try and force the states to do anything that would stand in the way of their right to have an economy! It isn’t a surprise that the Tea Partiers use the same anti-government rhetoric about Health Care, taxation, and government regulation of business (ex:the war on coal craziness).

My favorite part of the insanity, is the suggestion that the country is going in the wrong direction, as if four years ago it was all rosy and headed in the right direction. Even smart people seem to have short memories and often can’t see past the end of their nose on this one. One evening at dinner, and Father got more angry with me than I have ever seen him, when I pressed him on why the deficit had grown under Bush. How is it that everyone forgets that there was a budget surplus until Bush? I told him it was two wars, the first of which was started based upon lies told to the American people, and Medicare Part D. He huffed back at me that Medicare had nothing to do with it. Part D, I returned, the Medicare Drug Benefit that Bush put through unfunded. That there were “parts” to Medicare, and that one of them was relatively new, was totally a surprise to him; one he wasn’t buying at all. Truly, war is had to budget and plan for, but the fact that Bush passed big ticket items that were unfunded.. and that is what they want to go back to? Nope. Any logical person knows it isn’t just a memory issue. Those who didn’t get their way with Romney and now want to secede are doing so because we have a black man in the white house and the status quo white male majority is no more. This didn’t start four years ago at all.

Unlike some friends who say, “hey get out and don’t let the country’s door hit you on the behind,” I don’t believe they ought to be left off the hook so easily. Freedom isn’t free and don’t treat it so cheaply. Be real participants in the democratic processes that we use as our government. Grow up and be adults.

All across the globe governments have struggled with economic failures and hardships. Wherever austerity and cost cutting measures alone have been used, economies stagnant and growth is too little. Where governments have sought to infuse money, the growth has been more. We are doing the exact right thing for progress. We are going in the right direction, and if the Conservatives in Washington really cared about the economy, they would have been pushing “jobs” bills right and left instead of working to restrict women’s rights to choose, and all of the other stuff this past Congress is guilty of.

But we must also lay more blame back on Bush. It was fine that he felt the budget surplus was too large, but rather than cut taxes as much as he did, especially on the most wealthy, that money should have gone for paying down the debt, which is a whole separate thing from the deficit. And smart governments try to put some money aside for a rainy day, right?

The secessionist talk is just the ongoing campaign against Obama who has already won and will lead our country for four more years. It is underneath everything else a ploy to protect white privilege and keep the poor poor. It is a modern-day type of slavery. And it was wrong then, and wrong now.