Seven Score and Five Years Ago

One hundred and forty-five years after the Civil War has ended, the Confederacy is mounting a new campaign to resume the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln championed the cause of the slaves, to free them, and Robert Lee championed the cause of the slave owners, to keep the Black men as slaves. The Confederates thus championed the rights of the States to dictate their own laws and the Union championed the rights of all the people to live under one law, the US Constitution. The Confederates were branded as Rebels and the Union advocates as Yankees. They were even called Yankee mules by the Southerners, on account of their stubbornness perhaps. The War ended with six hundred thousand Americans dead. Then the nation began the healing process. For most, the healing took a lifetime, but for the true Rebels the wounds of the Civil War never healed but festered … until today!

The Rebels are back and they are no longer championing the rights of the slave owners but in a symbolic reversal of epic proportions, they are hoisting an unlikely nominee for President, the first Black Man in history of the United States, whose father came from Africa as a free man, not a slave, who received a free education in an American university and married an Irish American woman and enjoyed all the freedoms of American democracy.

Senator Obama grew up American and worked hard to achieve everything he has. He has proven himself to be a worthy candidate and he has defeated the former First Lady Hilary Clinton in the primaries.

Thus the Rebels have come back with an ingenious plan to put forth a candidate who, if elected President, can be manipulated to do their bidding and abandon all the gains made by US policy in the world and turn the clock backwards to the drugged out panaceas of the 1960s.

The choice of the Democratic Party for the 44th President is, therefore, an African American, a Kenyan-Irish candidate born in America, a man of excellent character and a Senator of these United States. Senator Barack Hussein Obama is also an excellent orator, a phenomenal legal mind, highly educated, and a capable politician.

Although not Black as they are Black, and the descendants of freed slaves, Black Americans instinctively support Barack Obama. Senator Barack Obama is an African-American whose father came to America as a foreign student; nevertheless, the American Black people have overwhelming embraced the candidacy of Senator Obama. In Senator Obama the Black people of America see a man who will lead them from the Civil Rights Era gains to total equality, and allow them to achieve the goals set by Martin Luther King and other Civil Right leaders of the 21st Century.

Moreover, Senator Obama has reached out to all Americans, regardless of skin color, religious affiliation or place of origin, and promised everyone some of the most cherished hopes of America: healthcare for all, free university education, and economic opportunity; life, liberty, and happiness. Even Thomas Jefferson qualified that as “the pursuit of happiness” but with Senator Obama one feels that happiness itself is not only feasible but attainable, such is his demeanor and the mood of his followers.

The Rebels of the 21st Century couldn't possibly have come up with a better candidate to defeat the Yankees even if they'd tried. Even the Deep South Democrats, such as Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, have come out and endorsed Sen. Obama. Sen. Ted Kennedy, who once jokingly referred to Sen. Obama as Senator Osama, has come out and endorsed Sen. Obama for President. In fact, Senator Obama has wide support among White Americans, those with high levels of education and cultural sophistication, albeit the unreligious, atheists, and leftists for the most part.

Senator Obama enjoys one of the best-financed campaigns in American politics. The number of donors to his campaign has exceeded that of all other candidates in history. There is a euphoria surrounding the candidacy of Senator Obama; he represents the hope of many dispossessed Americans who lost their dreams in the Post-Nine-Eleven Era.

With gas prices three times what they were a short time ago, lenders defrauding borrowers and homeowners losing their properties, the American people are contemplating a drastic change in leadership. They are looking at bypassing a patriotic American, a war hero, a soldier who came from a line of American servicemen with meritorious service; every one of his opponents, including Sen. Obama, concedes that Senator John McCain is an honorable man who served his country heroically.

Are Americans so desperate, have they gone so far astray of their original way that they will call an end to the Great Experiment and go back to the 19th Century mindset of the Civil War America? People have forgotten today that prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, President Lincoln asked General Robert Lee to lead the Union Army against the Confederacy. Later, Gen. Lee accepted the command of the Confederate Army and fought on behalf of the slave owners.

The issues aren't so clear today. Americans, as portrayed in the media, made a big deal of voting for Senator John Kennedy because he was of Irish Catholic heritage. Only half a century later, in our own lifetimes, the Democratic Party is about to nominate an African-American for President. Even some Republicans are thinking of not voting for John McCain, a man hand-picked by President Reagan to head his Task Force, a man who fought in the Vietnam War and was wounded and imprisoned by the Vietcong. We haven't elected a woman President yet, we haven't elected a Jewish President, we haven't elected an Italian-American President, we haven't even elected a Black American President.

So what the Democratic Party is attempting to do is affect a regime change without ever firing a gun. This is a bloodless revolution, a Constitutional revision, a historical paradigm shift. We are looking in the chasm of history and are about to jump. Can we fly without wings?

July 10, 2008