The Case For Minnesota's Secession

Supporting Warmongers and Reactionaries

Did you know that Minnesotans pay over 100% more into the coffers of the government in Washington, DC, than they receive in benefits? (See map above and chart below, courtesy of "The Economist" at: http://tiny.cc/o62ui.) The state is being fleeced.

Given that Washington also launches and forces us to participate in illegal, interminable and colossally expensive wars of aggression, wars that will bleed us for generations; that it botches foreign policy in other ways that hurt us, such as maintaining the trade embargo on Cuba; and that it constantly emanates toxins from a depraved media and political culture; wouldn't it be better for Minnesota to secede from the Union?

Our state would have been better off waltzing out of the USA circa 1970, when Vietnam and Nixon had made it clear how terribly the country had veered off course, and when Minnesota did even better relative to the rest of the country on socioeconomic indicators. But it's not too late, even now.

Minnesota used to produce enlightened politicians, even statesmen, like Eugene McCarthy and Paul Wellstone. Even presidential election losers Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale would tower over contemporary national political figures. Now, however, infected by the reactionary zeitgeist in the rest of the country and funded by Texas oilmen and the Koch brothers, the state produces intellectual midgets and/or demagogues such as Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann. We even harbor our own PNAC monster, Vin Weber. It's hard to believe any of these latter domestic evildoers would have had a leg to stand on if Minnesota were its own nation-state, free of benighted forces from beyond its borders.

So, rather than being subjected to rule by sadistic troglodytes like George W. Bush (and, potentially, Rick Perry), wouldn't it be almost infinitely better if we Minnesotans could govern ourselves according to our own traditional values, among which I would count a belief in shared prosperity, equality of opportunity, and quiet competence? The alternative is to allow greed, jingoism, ignorance and pettiness -- the hallmarks of Washington, DC, and much of the rest of the country, particularly the South -- to continue to corrode our state.

It would be hard enough to assert that paying a premium of 100% for the fruits of an excellent national political system is worth it. But given the reality of the debacle that Washington, DC, has become, it seems almost impossible to argue that we should stay in the federal game. The moral noxiousness and financial dysfunction that the capital foists on us should be cauterized while Minnesota remains a distinctive, productive and viable society. The USA is killing us.

Help The Poor? Edwards Can't Be Bothered

Heading Back to the Better of the Two Americas

Erstwhile Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards promoted an appealing rhetoric: The working poor in America should get a larger piece of the very large national economic pie. In the interests of equity and social harmony, this was the right stance to take, especially after years of government sponsorship of class warfare against society's most vulnerable members. Edwards, it appeared, had made a personal and moral commitment to creating a fairer America.

But as soon as it became clear he would not obtain his party's nomination, John Edwards quit. It reminded me of something I had almost forgotten: On election night 2004 I went to bed having heard vice-presidential candidate Edwards promise to explore every legal channel in Ohio in a bid to move that state's electoral votes into the Democratic column and potentially propel the putative opposition party into the White House. By the very next morning, though, the great American appeaser had capitulated and that was the end of the matter. His running mate John Kerry went back to his cushy job as a senator, and our nation got four more years of George W. Bush.

This time around, knowing full well he would end his presidential bid the next day, John Edwards found himself in a union hall in St. Paul, Minnesota, urging the gathering (along with potential donors) to stay in the election fight with him. I guess announcing the campaign's end at that time was inconvenient from the standpoint of publicity generation, but there should have been great compunction about leading supporters on for such self-serving reasons. Edwards took advantage of the union members, hiding his real intentions until one last opportunity to grandstand before the national press during prime cable news hours.

If Edwards really cared about poor Americans as he claims, he would stay in the race until the Democratic convention in August and broker a deal there on their behalf. But clearly this cause of the poor is not worth another few months of work for the former senator. When the going got tough, he folded. Meanwhile, 37 million poor Americans will remain that way, without an explicit champion on the national stage.

The disingenuous Edwards had this to say as he threw in the barely-perspired-upon towel: "But I want to say . . . . this son of a millworker's gonna be just fine." With that reassurance, America's working poor must have breathed a tremendous sigh of relief. The system actually works, at least for half-hearted politicians with millions of dollars to fall back on.

Karl Rove's $261,000 Federal Job Program

Karl Rove is a subject so repellent that this entry will be short. At least twenty students at Washington, DC's American University also find him objectionable, so much so that after Rove addressed a group of College Republicans on campus Tuesday night, the protestors pelted his exiting car with debris and lay down in the roadway to impede its movement. The Secret Service dealt with the protest quickly, however, and within a few minutes life for the offical White House "senior political advisor" was back to normal.

It is easy to understand why the students took to the streets. Under Rove's tutelage, President George W. Bush has lied the nation into war in Iraq; spied illegally on American citizens; and promoted acts of torture. Apparently at Rove's behest, the identity of an undercover CIA agent specializing in nuclear non-proliferation was revealed for political reasons and her career ended. On the economic front, the administration has implemented policies that ensure that the American worker receives ever-less of the national GDP in wages, in spite of the president's 2000 promise to "make the pie higher" for everyone. The latest affront to the nation, of course, is the revelation that the White House hired and fired US Attorneys on the basis of their political usefulness, not their ability to administer justice.

So, with Rove playing a central role in the most damaging presidential regime in living memory, what is the worst aspect of this infamous partisan hatchet man? That he is on the public payroll! That Rove is a cynical sadist is one thing; that American taxpayers are forced to pay his salary is outrageous. Why does an essentially private Republican operative have an office in a public building, the White House? Why does he have taxpayer-financed Secret Service protection? Why does his salary -- $261,000 in 2005 -- come from the public treasury?

It's no wonder the Democrats don't cry foul: they want to put their own partisan hacks on the nation's payroll should they ever re-take the White House. But why has the press said nothing? While we try to ascertain the answer to that question, any of America's youth mapping out their own career path to power should note that "Bush's Brain" is a college dropout. On second thought, perhaps Rove's current job was the only one he could get.