"They'd Never Do It Again!" - Think AGAIN!

The problem with too many Americans, as I've often observed, is that they are unpracticed and untutored in deep politics (which is why so many adhere to the "middle") and they have the political memory of gnats. This is why politicos can play them over and over again, and they never advance their insights as to what is happening to them and why. It is also why author Gore Vidal once referred to our nation as the "United States of Amnesia".

Yes, yes, when one tuned onto the nightly news one beheld the usual procession of interviewed 'Muricans, as in Milwaukee last night (on NBC nightly news) professing how disgruntled they are with "those politicians" in D.C.  Who? WHICH politicians? The sentiment of most of these Beer City Burghers is that they are "all" to blame and "they need to learn to compromise".  HUH?  Don't any of you have any clue at all as to who the perps were in this fiasco?

Can you say T-E-A    B-A-G-G-E-R-S?

Such nonsense responses by Milwaukeeans caused me to despair that the rank and file of Americans, voting Americans even, will ever get it. Their consistent inability to separate the political wheat from the chaff and pin the tail on "all of 'em" - as opposed to being able to discriminate, is disheartening. Why? What is the problem? Are they so overworked in their jobs they can't access basic facts? Or is it because too many are brainwashed by watching FOX News? Well, that is sad.

Any normal functioning brain, of even normal IQ,  exposed to the facts of the past three weeks ought to have processed that a bellicose clique in ONE PARTY nearly succeeded in bringing the U.S. government to default, which would have been catastrophic. Why was this so hard to grasp by those interviewed Milwaukeeans, and why did the idiotic term "compromise" even enter? Compromise over WHAT?

As Rachel Maddow accurately (and assertively!) pointed out last night, there is NO THIRD WAY! You don't get to fucking threaten to shut the government down because you want to impose  your will to stop Obamacare! If you lost in the forum of a 2012  general election and the Supreme Court also ruled against you, then you need to pack up your little toys and go home and cry alone. You don't get to extort concessions you couldn't get honestly in the other two venues. In other words,

YOU LOSE!

Go back, regroup, get set for another general election, where you can take the Presidency, and oh - also the Senate, THEN try again! If them apples don't suit your sorry little ass or fancy, then try for another Supreme Court ruling to overturn the Roberts one. But don't threaten government shutdown by pressuring your House reps with being "primaried" if you didn't get your way in legitimate democratic forums. And don't hand anyone the unmitigated,  proto-Confederate codswallop that you are entitled to do it because "this ain't a democracy, it's a Republic!" Uh, no Jethroe! It may be a Republic but it still operates on democratic principles!  As in majority votes win elections (except in 2001, but Gore would have taken the electoral as well if 170,000 African-Americans in Florida hadn't been put on felon rolls by Choicepoint.)

So the question becomes: What are the chances we all have to go through this bull shit again in three months? Many talking heads this morning, including several on 'Morning Joe' and also  Sen. Chuck Schumer,  think it's out of the question. Given the Repukes' political damage (they suffered a lot more than the Dems and Obama as they SHOULD have!) the argument is that they'd not do it again in a million years: hold the gov't hostage to nix Obamacare.

But the people that make such assertions have no remote idea of the morons they're dealing with. They also don't seem to grasp these people hail from extremist, backward districts with backward, ignorant and extremist people - many who pine for era of the old Confederacy. They detest that a black man holds the highest office in the land, and with every fiber of their being. Given they are at least semi-clever they realize they'd be seen for the knuckle draggers they are if they espoused outright racism - they use the subterfuge of attacking his signature law instead.

They are also enraged they've been losers in the last general election and haven't been able to swallow it since. So, no, they aren't going to go gently into that good night - they're going to return in ways that'd make "Freddy Krueger' proud.

Last night, Chris Hayes asked one of the Georgia tea bagger reps what he and his clique gained over the past 16 days.  As Chris put it, "the CR (continuing resolution) could have been passed over two weeks ago without all the damage." The guy looked Chris in the eye with a weasel's grin and actually said:

"Well, we showed our beliefs and our BRAND. We demonstrated our principles to the country"

Your brand?! Your principles? At the expense of the principles of the country?  He also implied this could go on again, and another Dem rep later interviewed by Chris agreed. According to that Dem, "they will do this every few months, leading up to the 2014 general elections, and they will pay dearly".

Make no mistake they will! Their ignorant, half-educated constituents will demand no less. If their current reps don't comply, a dopier ass right wing nut will be found in some backwoods moonshine joint to primary the original rep....on the right. Recall the original "model" for the primary on the Right tactic was unleashed in Delaware when Mike Castle, a nine-term Republican House Rep  and former governor was "primaried" by a bimbo name Christine O'Donnell (See below).


That success energized the Tea Party morons and made them realize they could threaten any "establishment" Republican with political extermination  - by picking some nitwit to run against him - if he failed to comply with their demands.  That model has since been used with enormous success and there is no sign - not one, the denizens of the Tea Party will cease and desist.

That means that in another few months we will likely face another economic Armageddon and more economic damage, Ironically, these fools who bitch so much about the national debt have-  with their silliness  -  increased it by over $22 billion. They've also slowed growth and ensured we have a deeper hole to dig out of, not to mention world markets' confidence being  undermined by our crisis politics. Do they care? Hell no!


An article on salon.com  ('GOP's Huge Tea Party Mess Has Just Begun') noted this morning:

"Republicans can spin it among themselves as a Democratic concession, but they can’t rightly look back at the ruin of the past month, and the content of the deal, and expect that they can extort unreciprocated concessions from Democrats next time around.The questions on everyone’s mind are, Will they try anyhow? And what will the coming months look like if they don’t?

Republicans didn’t just sacrifice an incredible amount of public cachet in this fight. Their leaders also revealed, for the second time this year, that they’re not willing to actually allow the country to default just to preserve party unity or pressure the president to cave. Unless they’re stricken with a nihilistic sense of bitterness and the feeling that they have nothing left to lose, there’s little reason to think they’re going to approach coming deadlines the same way they approached these past two. Before you object on the grounds that the past month’s events won’t make conservative House hardliners any less bloodthirsty: I agree. They can’t fight their nature, or their incentives, and they don’t even seem to want to.

My suspicion, though, is that the right will have about the same amount of sway in the months ahead as an erratic general who led his soldiers into a massacre, then re-assimilated unnoticed far down the chain of command. He’s still there, he’s still cranky, but other officers can now point to the slaughter and everyone will ignore his guidance."


Well, many other percipient observers, such as on MSNBC last night (interviewed by Chris Hayes) believe Boehner has emerged as more powerful politically for backing down, and also that he may use this leverage in the upcoming battles. So  no, don't look for the Tea Party faithful to "overlook his guidance". If those of us who are suspicious are correct, we will see an even more bitter replay in January - with another shutdown - and in February, with another debt ceiling face off.

We are informed by the pundits the ongoing discussion will now be about cutting "entitlements" but don't believe the ACA won't also factor in. Obama has held strong so far, without folding like a two- bit suit, but we must expect that he will continue to preserve his spine and not become too mesmerized with a "bipartisan deal" with proven hostage takers!

YES! The Tea Baggers Are Nuts Enough to Crash The Government!

Rebel traitor Jefferson Davis, whose visage still appears on many Southern license plates, must be smiling from his grave at how his neo-Confederate ideological descendants have brought the government to the precipice and will now likely toss it over the cliff.

"If you listen to right-wing radio, watch FOX News and read their online media and take it seriously (because they do) then you would know that many on the right don’t want to live in a country that has Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, the minimum wage, Food Stamps, immigration, public schools, infant nutrition programs and the rest of the things government does to make our lives better. And they don’t want anyone else to live in a country that has those things, either."-  Dave Johnson, 'Misunderestimating Who They Are', smirkingchimp.com


Okay, I admit I was wrong. Way wrong! In my fulsome over optimism (which only occurs a few times a century) I had actually predicted the government shutdown would end after a week and never ever bleed into the debt ceiling deadline. I had somehow expected rationality to eventually prevail so we wouldn't have reached this point. But, alas, I'd underestimated the supreme idiocy and insanity of the Tea Bagger neo-Confederate band of loons holding this country hostage. Many of whom, let's be clear, don't even think a default matters or will have consequences. Thanks to these assholes, all of us will experience real consequences!


Ol' Jeff Davis must be smiling from his grave, to see his ideological and other economic descendants (in the Tea Party especially) are on the verge of crashing the federal government into what many financial analysts have called "Armageddon" if the debt ceiling isn't raised by midnight tonight.

Already credit rating service Fitch has put the U.S. on a watch list for credit downgrade, below its current AAA bond rating. If that happens, and if no solution is reached by midnight, then we are headed to default. The U.S. Treasury will be able to borrow no more money, and risks not being able to pay Social Security, Military Vets benefits, or bond interest. In this case, which could transpire by Oct. 31- Nov. 1 (as Steve Rattner noted on Chris Hayes' All In on Monday) then people will see pain across the board. Start with your student loans, home loans and car loans all going up. As Rattner noted, every 1% increase in interest means $20b not available for purchase of goods and services. One financial analyst firm already estimates the shutdown has cost this fragile economy $22b.

Meanwhile, this morning, John Chambers -   Chair of the Sovereign Ratings Committee at Standard and Poor's -  has noted that each week of shutdown has cut 0.3% of GDP from the 4th quarter output This alone is parlous, given the GDP in any given year remains unbelievably low at 2-2.2%.  Chambers noted that if we go past the point the government can't borrow any more, "one of two things can happen": 1) You'd have to cut government spending (other than debt service) by over a quarter of gov't spending, which would put the economy in recession, OR  2) refuse to pay bond interest coming due  -leading to absolute default. In this case, the outcome would be "much worse than Lehman in 2008". For those who don't recall, Lehman paved the way for the massive stock market crash (and credit meltdown) that year,  with most 401ks losing up to 40% of their value - from which many ordinary citizens have just started to emerge.

Chambers also dispelled a long standing myth among the ignorant Tea Bagger crowd, i.e. that the debt ceiling being raised allows spending.  In fact, as Chambers pointed out, "the spending has already been approved as per acts of congress, but now elected officials are balking at funding that spending."

And let's get it straight WHO these assholes are: they are entirely the Tea Bagger nutsos who have threatened Goopr  weak sister John Boehner with his Speakership unless he conforms to their idiotic, insane agenda - defunding the Affordable Care Act.  This is why Boehner, wussie that he is, turned down the reasonable bipartisan solution worked out in the Senate yesterday- which was really the last best chance to conclude a deal.  That deal would have re-opened the government at least until January, and raised the debt ceiling without any major strings attached, until February. So anyone prepared to blame the inability to go to military monuments (including Vietnam War Memorial) in D.C. on Dems or Obama needs to get their heads on straight about who the real culprits are here. (Oh, and stop watching FAUX News!)


Because as soon as the rational re-opening solution was sent to the House, Boehner's rebellious crew warned him it was a no -go. No way would they vote for it, because "it didn't go far enough". Now note- this was after GOP Senate stalwarts like Mitch McConnell, had already backed it. So WHO are the crazy whackjobs here? WHO are the ones responsible for this bullshit? They comprise a kernel of about 44 -odd,  recycled proto-Jeff Davis backers in the House - about 1/30 of the whole gov't holding the rest hostage.

Chris Hayes had a feature segment on 'Who Is Shutting the Government Down?'

At the top of the list, Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia's 10th district, about whom Chris played several clips, including showing this asshole stating:

- The South was victimized by "Yankee Aggression" in the Civil War

- Climate change is the "biggest hoax of the century"

- " Evolution, the Big Bang Theory and Embryology are ALL lies from the Pit of Hell".

Get this, this delusional psychotic jackass sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology! You want to know why your government is shut down, look no further than under -educated Tea Party pawns  like this. Though he claims to have an "M.D." degree, it could only have been awarded by Smokehouse Online Bible College since he professes the Bible governs and dictates science. And no real scientist would ever make a statement (following his fulminations against evolution, etc.)  like:  "It's these lies that try to keep me and all the folks who are taught from understanding that they need a savior".

Again, HOW the fuck can this fool be a member of any Science and Technology committee? Shit, how the hell could he even be a member of congress? The only explanation is half wit goobers in his district no more educated or informed than he is, electing his sorry ass!  And it is because of 44 such districts across these United States (mostly in the South), with hundreds of thousands of such halfwits (many pining for the glorious days of Jeff Davis and his lot) that we have 44 Tea Bagger traitors in the House ready to turn this country upside down to try and get their way. Are we now into appointing blithering imbeciles? Well,  figure it out for yourself when you next consider another Tea Pea moron backing the shutdown and default: Doug Lamborn.

Lamborn hails from El Paso County, Colorado, where he's been re-elected by the goober hyper military nuts ensconced here. Though these goobers piss and moan about "welfare" (Medicaid) for a pregnant mom working at Walmart unable to make ends meet from a piddling wage, they are quite happy to snatch military welfare benefits.  This includes defense contractor benefits such as Lamborn has proposed to construct a $1 billion 'combat air brigade" here in the Springs, defended as "necessary for training support in Afghanistan" - despite the fact the U.S. is supposed to be leaving next year.

In other words, $1 b down the drain, and that's not even figuring in the tens of millions wasted each year in fuel costs with 122 choppers flying hither, thither and yon.

Lamborn has also gone on record to defund any health care act, especially the ACA, which allows birth control. He also is against contraception, period, and demands a "personhood" amendment to "protect the unborn citizen".  Thus, he advocates passage of a new personhood amendment currently on offer, which penalizes any pregnant woman with up to 5 years behind bars if she is caught riding on a motorcycle, skiing, or drinking alcohol - which would be "voluntary manslaughter of the unborn citizen."

Now you know the basic psychological profile of the Tea Bagger assholes shutting the government down, and holding a gun to our collective heads as we near the 11th hour. Don't fucking blame Obama for any of this! He's finally standing his god damned ground as he should have the first time these fucks tried to extort concessions in 2011. Blame the Jefferson Davis, neo-Confederate dickheads who are hell bent to avenge the South's surrender to "Yankee aggression",  by taking down the current federal gov't led by the first African-American President.

To read more about the issue under discussion, see:

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/07/shutdown_shows_the_civil_war_never_ended_partner/

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/13/the_south_is_holding_america_hostage/

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/joshua-holland/52150/tea-partys-war-memorial-rally-was-another-let-him-die-moment

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jack-lessenberry/52151/meet-the-gop-Taliban

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/52148/misunderestimating-who-they-are

Could the Shutdown Make This The Worst Flu Season Ever?

Let's understand that the flu is no joke, and no sport. Getting it can means weeks of suffering  and often wishing you were dead. That's about how I felt after getting the Hong Kong Flu in December, 1968 with the effects lasting for months. It's also close to how my wife felt after getting the H3N2 variety of flu last December. Nonetheless, we reason that it still makes sense to get flu shots - if only because they can at least lessen the effects, symptoms. So this year we got ours at our primary doc's office a week ago. It was the new '4 in 1' vaccine that is supposed to protect against 4 varieties.

We also make sure to get flu shots because the evidence now shows that getting the full bore flu can produce an inflammatory response that weakens already damaged blood vessels making the person more susceptible to a heart attack.  So why take the chance?

It appears that we may have well acted wisely - especially this year- as government and CDC (Center for Disease Control) resources are hobbled and subverted by the Tea Party instigated government attempted hostage -taking and shutdown.  How so? According to former CDC Director David Satcher, for any flu outbreak to occur while two-thirds of the staff of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is on furlough could be disastrous.

In an editorial for Bloomberg News, Satcher wrote, "there is a very real potential for unnecessary pain, suffering and death when the work of public-health officials is curtailed.”

This is serious, but we already know that given the priorities of effect arising from the ongoing shutdown, the welfare of  ordinary Americans lies at the bottom of the list. Trumping it are ongoing development of military weapons systems (e.g. the F-35 bomber), which private defense contractors are not about to let go of come hell or high water. Thus, it's no surprise to see how Satcher has laid out just how the diminished capacity of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to monitor disease directly translates into reduced protection for the American people. These include:

- Weakened surveillance for detecting and responding to infectious diseases: Nine of the 10 Global Disease Detection Centers have significantly reduced monitoring for diseases such as Ebola and new pathogens such as Middle East respiratory syndrome (Corona virus) and H7N9, which could threaten the U.S.

- CDC doesn’t have the personnel to monitor, track and provide guidance about seasonal flu activity, even as the season is beginning. Tens of thousands die in the worst flu seasons, what will the death toll be like when little or no monitoring is available? What if the Corona virus strikes at the same time and inadequate personnel are available to make a differential diagnosis from serious influenza? What if the Bird flu strikes?

- Although state public-health investigators can detect disease outbreaks, the CDC’s ability to conduct cross-state collaboration and lab work for linking these outbreaks is critical (see e.g. the film 'Contagion) and hence capacity for state assistance is severely diminished.

- The CDC isn’t able to conduct routine inspections of high-security labs to ensure that they are taking appropriate precautions when handling deadly agents such as anthrax, smallpox, monkeypox and Ebola.  Several incidents concerning lax security have already been reported. What if lack of adequate oversight permits one of the harbored 'beasties' to escape confinement?

- Staffing at the Emergency Operation Center is minimal. In the event of a natural or man-made disaster, the CDC will have difficulty in responding quickly and efficiently to any public-health challenge.  Think of something like an F5 tornado striking Oklahoma or Missouri, or massive flooding in New Jersey from another super storm. Do we really want this?

True, the shutdown may not generate any massive additional illness or compounded catastrophe from lack of resources. But such an outcome may be based  on pure dumb luck, not on rationally appropriated resources, personnel.  As Dr. Satcher puts it:

"Surely we can agree that it is irresponsible to base our disease detection and response strategy on luck.”

Well, rational people may well agree, but this, alas, doesn't include the pro-Dixie Tea Bagger contingent - who have no use for a federal government, and would have their states secede if they could.

Why Boehner is a Liar, Weasel, Punk and Traitor

"They wanted to defund Obamacare, and they lost, and they know it. Now, thanks to the fact that they are frightening everyone, they want the prize they've been seeking since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

For the record: if the Obama administration, in its bottomless desire to Do Something Really Big And Bi-Partisan, actually goes and takes this bait, they should be brought up on three hundred million counts of negligent homicide, because they will have killed the country for all time.-  William Rivers Pitt,  'Boehner, Obama and the Triple Dog Dare', smirkingchimp.com


So this whole freaking shebang shutdown has been all for show, to show the Obama administration, the country and the world that the old South is ascendant again and will call the shots (using 'hostage politics')  whenever the hell it wants. Tea Bagger nation, make no mistake, is the reincarnation of the Confederate traitors in modern form with John Boehner as Chief Enabler.

We now learn, as per the analysis of Chris Hayes last night on MSNBC, the GOP always felt the repeal or defunding of 'Obamacare' wasn't feasible and what they wanted all along was a ransom to extract "entitlement" cuts without having to raise taxes. Who'da thought? Well, we should have realized it was all an act.

As per a recent article in TIME ('Loss Leaders'. p. 24) Boehner never believed that challenging Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) was a viable option since two days after Obama's re-election. According to the article:

"Two days after Obama's victory, Boehner was asked whether Republicans would continue to pursue a repeal of health care reform.

'I think the election changes that', he said, 'Obamacare is the law of the land'.

He flatly rejected the idea of tying funding for the bill to the larger fiscal battle.

'Trying to put Obamacare on a budget resolution risks shutting down the government."

So why in the hell did Weepy Johnno turn around and do just that? As TIME notes it was because his Tea Party Caucus wanted nothing less than Obamacare defunded. Since all those reprobates are invincible in their districts - never having to worry about being 'primaried' on the Right, so long as they adhere to the Teapee line-  it didn't matter to them. It did to the weasel punk  Boehner, who stood to lose his Speakership if he refused to cooperate. So despite his earlier refusal to put the ACA on a budget resolution, the little traitor did just that:  placing his Speakership above the national welfare, to appease his proto-Confederate minions.

Hence, pushed by his whiny punk zealot TPs, here we stand at the precipice of a possible credit default. And a never before event: The nation failing to honor its bond responsibilities for the first time in American history.  Is this "harsh language"? You're damned straight because harsh language to call these cretins out is what's required. Being "civil" is exactly what they don't grasp, and what they interpret as weakness. This is a point Obama needs to comprehend as I noted yesterday.

But lo and behold the demands have now changed. No longer does the GOP- at least its saner elements-  demand defunding Obamacare, , but  rather the full scale slicing and dicing of Social Security and Medicare - with no tax strings attached. Only then will they allow the debt ceiling to be raised and national economic catastrophe to be averted.

Of course, Obama can't give in to this new variant of extortion any more than the old. As blogger William Rivers Pitt has aptly put it ('Boehner, Obama and the Triple Dog Dare', www.smirkingchimp.com):

"President Obama's most significant achievement, his legacy for all time, will be facing down these cretins, holding the line against any and all concessions on elemental pieces of legislation like the budget and the debt limit, and ending the vile and vicious cycle of hostage politics that has done so much damage already.

If he doesn't, well...that's a legacy, too."


To which I totally agree. For Obama to even remotely consider doing a "grand bargain" that includes cutting Social Security and Medicare to allow even a temporary increase in the debt ceiling would be an abomination to tarnish his legacy permanently.

What If The Tea Bagger South Had Won The Civil War?

"Remember that had we as a nation followed the Southern model for government and social values up to now, we would not be near the great and inclusive nation that we are today. Remember that 19 red states (as determined by votes in the 2012 presidential election) are given back more in federal revenue than their citizens are taxed. The top 10 states that give more to the federal government than they get back are all blue states.

If you were the CEO of a progressive corporation looking to relocate, would you pick the state where people grow up having basic health care that includes preventive care for which your company doesn't directly have to pay? Or would you pick a state where people can't afford to even get basic preventive care and have high levels of diabetes, obesity, infant mortality, etc.?- Jonathan H. Reilly, letter in today's Colorado Springs Independent.


It is time for the non-Southern American majority, in alliance with many non-elite Southerners of all races, to target and attack every element of the Southern Autonomy Project simultaneously. If the neo-Confederates want to wage political and economic war, their fellow Americans should choose to respond with political and economic war on all fronts, not on the terms and in the places the Southern conservatives choose.- Michael Lind, The South is Holding America Hostage, salon.com



Confederate sympathizers across the land continue to blow noxious clouds of revisionist history on how the South was "wronged", that it was really a "war of Northern Aggression" (never mind the South seceded first) and wow...how great things would have been if the Confederates had prevailed! (Actually, in many cultural-political ways they did, as noted by author Joshua Zeitz in his article 'Dixie's Victory' in the Sept. 2002 issue of American Heritage. From fundie, bible pounding hellfire religion, to run -amuck gun toting and incessant braying by the political class for ever more tax cuts and 'smaller government', the South really has put its odious mark on the nation.)

In fact, we are seeing the attempted revival of the Old Confederacy (certainly its values) play out again on the national landscape with this government shutdown – and as I remarked several blogs earlier – this is an economic manifestation of a Civil War. It is also an effort to racially tar Obama by the diversionary subterfuge tactic of repealing (they call it “defunding”) his signature ACA health care law. Whether hailing from North or South, the Tea Party is the reincarnation of the Confederates who once tried to secede from the Union. They can’t this time, but the next best thing is to destroy the functions of government so totally that – starting with their ignorant base- they will elicit (or try to) millions across the nation to demand Obama and the Dems capitulate - thereby effectively returning the nation to “Southern style” economic governance.

For those lacking a historical bearing here, “Southern style” governance means a basic formula including:

- No church-state separation and bibles admitted in schools as well as creationism taught instead of evolution

- No unions at all, period, in no manner, shape or form

- Minimal government spending on social services, and repeal of Social Security, Medicare

- Massive government spending on anything military, including building as many bombers, fighters and new missiles as possible.

- Total outlawing of abortion as well as contraception and also rendering illegal a host of sexual acts, including masturbation, oral sex.

- Imprisoning all pregnant women who are deemed to be risking the life of their unborn by any “reckless” acts – such as motorcycling, skiing or drinking alchohol.

- Keeping all females barefoot and pregnant, by altering employment laws, in the interest of “biblical mores and family values”

Now , what IF these Tea Bagger miscreants and traitors had prevailed in the Civil War? Let's give their worshippers and many others a bit of a reality check on what the state of the nation would be today. Maybe, just maybe, some will think again about their derelict ideations and realize the best outcome was the one that transpired.

If the Confederacy ‘Tea Baggers’ Had Won:

1) The Trade Union movement would never have originated in the 1940s. Kids would still be toiling starting from the age of 8 from sunrise to sundown. No worker's compensation, no paid time and a half for overtime, no time off for illness, or family problems.

2) Women, if they had jobs at all, would be working for less than half of what males earn.

3)Blacks would never have been accepted into the military or as football or baseball players. (They might have been allowed to play basketball, but who knows?)

4) The Jim Crow laws would still prevail, with separate facilities (restaurants, motels, rest rooms, etc.) for each race. Blacks would continue to have to sit at the back of the bus. Rosa Parks -- had she refused to change her bus seat-- would have been flogged then flogged again, and likely branded.

5) The lowest wages, slave wages, would predominate throughout the land. African-Americans would be disallowed for all jobs other than possibly house servants or lawn workers, landscapers, and even then only be paid by meals or housing - like today's sugar cane workers. No benefits, no health care.

6) Immigration, especially illegal, would be disallowed at the point of guns. Anyone crossing the border of even a light brown color would be shot on the spot.

7) The Confederate Battle flag would fly everywhere. There'd be no Lincoln Memorial in D.C. but rather a Jefferson Davis Memorial, with only whites allowed to visit.

8) There'd be little or no entertainment except for the Confederate Broadcasting System, and the Confederate Movie Network. The latter would show 'Birth of A Nation' on an endless loop, while the former would have all the current news about the great new Confederate strides.

9) Andersonville would never have been closed, and would remain today a Confederate -run concentration camp for those with pro-Northern sympathies.

10) Bibles (KJV) would be mandated in every home under pain of being horse-whipped - or sent to Andersonville!

11) Southern -cum-biblical morality law would rule the land. Eye for an eye justice, and morality from the Old Testament.

12) The military would be the biggest employer and the budgets would be allocated at nearly $1.5 trillion a year. The national debt would be twice what it is now, given the Southern ascendants had forbidden any taxes (thus, no 13th amendment to the Constitution would have been passed). Also, no Federal Reserve. (which originated as part of the 13th amendment).

13) There would be NO Medicare or Social Security. Those would be seen as "Yankee inventions". People would either make do with what they had, or perish. If kind enough, a gentle neo-Confederate would put an oldster out of his or her misery with a shot to the head or a shiv from an old Rebel bayonet.

14) The life expectancy would be 55 for men, as opposed to the median of 75, and 62 for women, as opposed to 78. All the wonderful modern medical inventions that beat back disease, including polio vaccine, flu vaccines, smallpox and typhoid vaccines, as well as MRI machines, CAT scans and colonoscopies...would never have been invented. Cancer and smallpox would be the number one killers along with self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head.

15) University research would be almost non-existent. As opposed to thousands of universities such as we have now, there'd be maybe 100 in all. The only ones assured of existence would be the Ivies, e.g. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc. because of their endowments.

16)Confederate History would be taught at all high schools and universities.

17) Corporal punishment (e.g. paddling using monster paddles 21/2 -3' long) would be mandated nationwide at all high schools for both sexes, as opposed to being confined to mainly Southern High schools (e.g. in MS, AL, GA, NC), as is the case today.

18) Bible reading would be mandated at all high schools nationwide, as well as prayer in schools. Any atheist kids, if they existed or revealed themseles, would get the paddle about every day.

19) Prisons would actually be converted to work farms, and prisoners (for all crimes, including anti-Confederate sentiments, civil rights protests etc.) would be rendered neo-slaves. Forced to work in the fields from dawn to dusk and flogged by overseers at any slight infraction.

20) Barack Obama would never have become president, nor would Herman Cain have beeen able to contend for a spot on the Republican ticket. It's also likely that the most Cain would have risen to in his employment would have been 'pizza delivery boy'- never the CEO of Godfather Pizzas!

21) Neither Barack nor Michele Obama would have received the Ivy League education they did at Harvard. Indeed, they'd each likely have only been able to attend a "Negro college" - if allowed to go at all.

22) Miscegenation laws (e.g. against the races mating or mixing) would apply under pain of instant execution...e.g. flogging then lynching. (Thus, Barack Obama might never have been born).

23) Adult Yankee atheists would be given the choice of leaving the country, or being permanently remanded to a CSA work camp.


See also:

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/07/shutdown_shows_the_civil_war_never_ended_partner/