It has happened before - it is happening NOW

It was interesting that the poll taken in Texas - can't remember who's poll it was - stated that 75% of Texans did not want to leave the union.

I think the real question to put before people is .. "... and the reason you feel you NEED to be part of the union, IS???"

I don't know that the drive to secede is as important to the individual states as is the need to move to make sure that they are self-sustainable.

By the time any proclamation of "secession" could be officially made ... it would be "shouted into a vacuum." I am finding it more and more difficult to figure out just why people are finding it hard to see that the Federal/Central government is imploding. "Economic recovery" is an illusion - a dangerous one, to those that hold out this dream - that things will "get, all better" - I would ask - "exactly how do you expect to 'recover' from a national debt that is in excess of 11 TRILLION dollars,

Figures on government spending and debt
WASHINGTON (AP) --

Total public debt subject to limit April 16 11,125,587
Statutory debt limit 12,104,000
Total public debt outstanding April 16 11,183,899
Operating balance April 16 257,351
Interest fiscal year 2009 thru February 148,762
Interest same period 2008 198,518
Deficit fiscal year 2009 thru February 764,525
Deficit same period 2008 264,541
Receipts fiscal year 2009 thru February 860,877
Receipts same period 2008 967,153
Outlays fiscal year 2009 thru February 1,625,402
Outlays same period 2008 1,231,694
Gold assets in March 11,041
and growing by nearly 4 billion dollars a day.

Even if the Federal government were to totally stop spending ... period ... a move that would be as equally unrealistic and irresponsible as spending like a drunken sailor, the way it does today. This debt would remain - and even if you could magically “freeze” this debt - the interest on this debt would continue to grow. Remember what we didn’t create out of thin air (it is officially called “monetizing the debt” - just printing money with nothing behind it, we borrowed from other countries AND from people like YOU - it’s called Treasury Bonds)

FORGET, Obama, Bush, Clinton - and on and on - this path was established in the early 1900s and like ANY addiction - each administration (to a small degree) and EVERY Congress (to the largest degree) has put their little stamp on it since. IT IS NOT, nor never really was a partisan thing - perhaps if anything, is the most long lived example of "bi-partisanship" we have ever had in this country.

The truth is that this country is imploding ... one needs to look to history for comparisons - civilizations, nation/states/empires - call them what you will are NOT linear - they are and historically and demonstratively CYCLICAL. I long ago left the Great Depression to current situation model and began looking deeper - at examples that were more encompassing of what is happening now. This analysis takes you beyond the collapse of Soviet Russia, or even Socialist Italy and Nazi Germany - go back and take a really hard look at the Roman Empire - from where it WAS to what caused it to collapse .. the analogies are frightening. This is NOT doom and Gloom, nor is it the 'sky is falling' it is being pragmatic .. when it collapsed, people didn't "vanish" .. they went on - perhaps the REAL question is - when we do go on, and again we will - just how dark do we want our "Dark Ages" to be?
Again, I would argue that Nation/States - Empires, Great Societies - whatever you term them are NOT linear - they are CYCLICAL .. And we have reached the end of OUR cycle.

Yesterday's Tea Parties and poor excuse for news coverage

As a retired journalist who practiced his craft for nearly 25 years - I was mortified and embarrassed by the shallow and highly biased degree of advocacy journalism that was displayed by the - as Rush Limbaugh has - I now think justifiably, termed them "drive-by" media, wire, and the print media coverage of yesterday's nationwide tea parties.
To even detail the trash that attempted to pass itself off for "news coverage" would elevate it to a level of legitimacy that this bilge doesn't deserve.
After I retired, I taught journalism for nearly 12 years - at one of the universities were I taught, they asked that I stressed "ethics" in reporting - I had always avoided this task - one reason being NONE of my students, IN ALL the years I taught would EVER stoop to the level of reporting and writing I witnessed and have read to this point.
The other reason was that to me "ethics" and practicing of one's profession - and ethics and the conduct of one's life were NEVER inseparable . Finally when pressed to cover that topic in class - rather than waste MY time and their's for the three hour session - I simply told them this regarding the ethical conduct of their profession;
"With regard to ethical conduct of your craft ---- ALWAYS remember this - after you leave here, I know where each of you are going - and I will ALWAYS know where each of you are --- and IF EVER, ANY of you cross that line - I will come right to where you are, and I will reach down your throats and RIP YOUR GUTS OUT!!!!!
I can only say with some degree of satisfaction that - to my knowledge - NONE of my former students were covering the event.
I can remember something said by the great columnist, Jimmy Breslin - There are no "journalists" today - they are nothing more than PR Agents - sitting in their little cubical, waiting for the news to come to them - usually in the form of a press release, which they take and regurgitate into what they pass off as a news story ... They need to get off their "lard" asses and actually go out and cover the news!
What we see and read today in the media, is what we see in Washington with regard to our governance - professions without substance - and what has become most ominous for the fate of our nation, a separation and blatant disregard for the interest of those they purportedly serve. In the case of the elected representatives, the public whom they were elected to represent - or with the news media, the public who they contend that they inform and protect. They (the politicians and media) have become the ruling elite ... and worse, they have come to think of themselves as infallible! This self-bestowed infallibility is nothing more than ARROGANCE. It is this arrogance that potentially bodes, in my opinion, catastrophic consequences for this nation.