A proper tribute

The persistence of MAGAism is profound. They're not just doubling down they're giving up on learning. They're giving up on our institutions. They're giving up on their neighbors. They are to the man/woman convinced that some darker forces are at play and Mr. Trump is the only light in the room. How could anyone in their right mind not want to be on the Trump train? That one is easy, even if it's headed the wrong way it's hard to step off a locomotive that's moving.

Even for thinking people the reasons that might not have been obvious to the casual observer/voter seem certain. A successful b-man, a constant provocateur of the powers-that-be, an outsider to the political realm, a real man of the people. How indeed...

So let's break it down a bit and see...

1.  As for the b-man, it's true that overall he's successful. A man that started off the scion of a self-made developer that specialized in modest housing developments in the Empire state. One who only borrowed ten million from his papa so he could start his own empire. The fact that he inherited another $413 million when the old man took a dirt nap might have something to do with it so... 

2.  As a constant provocateur to powers-that-be, the man has ALWAYS loved the camera and any limelight he could/can muster. With over twenty six acting credits and cameos in eleven movies like Home Alone II and The Little Rascals, the fact that he's ALWAYS been rich and a constant self-promoter might have something to do with it. 

3.  As an outsider to politics, as far back as his best selling book, The Art of the Deal, people have suggested he throw his hat into the ring. In actuality, Trump gave money to both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan's campaigns. He put his money where he hoped to find favor regardless of party. His critics have always known him to be a political gadfly as many of the rich are. They give money to both parties in order to assure themselves a place at whatever table is occupied by whomever. It's called hedging your bets. One might see this as smart but it's also something else, committing to your own agenda regardless of ideology. Many people see this as two-faced. MAGA doesn't see it at all.

 4.  As a man of the people, I understand this one because it's so damn easy to do. Pontificate about the reasons many people "believe" is the problem and remind them mercilessly. If it's illegal immigration, BAM. If it's foreign interests over America's, BAM-BAM! If it's corruption and graft in our system, BAM-BAM-BAM! None of these needs real evidence only the recollection of past sins and a belief someone else is always at fault. Facts be damned.

Immigration is a coil in America's DNA. We're born of it. All of us are immigrants if we count our ancestors. Which many do not. They'd rather believe that they somehow popped up out of the soil of Alabama or Michigan or Idaho and claim how them and theirs have always been here. The smart ones know better but rather tend to the might-makes-right category. Them injuns had it comin. S'what they git for bein dumbasses. Can't even make their own guns. (insert snort and spat sound) Fug'em!

So what's left when otherwise well-meaning folks believe the Great Orange One is the second coming? Or they choose to believe the drivel from his mouth is manna and medicine? It's near impossible to wake someone from their own fantasy. A lack of proof has never been an issue for "true believers." When facts are subjugated to beliefs, it won't be long before we ourselves are subjugated. History is piled high with the bodies of those that believed.

My hope is that any MAGA hat wearing persons will do as many Nazis did after hearing their savior had eaten his own gun and follow in his footsteps down into their own bunkers to pay due homage. 

I can think of no better tribute to the man.

 

Such a deal...

Too many of us have drank the Koolaid of indifference and derision over immigrants. I'm sure there are as many gasps are there are cheers every time a group of masked ICE agents storm into a Starbucks or Walmart. Wait a minute, a MAGAt wouldn't be caught dead in a Starbucks. We choose to look the other way while the Gestapo tactics are taking place a few feet away. I mean, they're skin is different, right? Too bad, I really loved their tamales and falafel.  

Such good pre-war Germans we'd make. 

Maybe we need another Underground Railroad. But we'd need a Harriet Tubman to go with. Our representatives are under the gun too. We decry their ineffectiveness and bemoan their blather about it all. Right or Left doesn't matter when you're being torn from the family, friends and home you might have built here in the greatest nation ever conceived. This country is a place of dreams not walls.

The first Europeans came with nothing but desperation and hope. Of course they brought a host of diseases heretofore never seen on this side of the Atlantic. That said, the first people's helped us survive even though we would screw them royally still. 

And now there's Trumplandia where everyone is invited to bend over and grab their ankles. 'Cause Trump's gonna save us all! Mmmhmm...

 

Cory Mills, Repbulican congressman and squatter...

This just in...

On top of not paying the rent on his downtown D.C. apartment, Rep. Cory Mills is at the center of a House Ethics Committee investigation. Documents show the congressman may have omitted or misrepresented information on financial disclosures, accepted excessive campaign contributions, and benefited from government contracts while in office. 

Well duh! And this... 

"While Mills has been living lavishly in D.C., he recently voted to cut the very programs his own constituents rely on," the Daytona Beach News-Journal reporter wrote. "In his district alone, over 51,000 people are at risk of losing their health care and more than 30,000 households rely on SNAP for food assistance." 

Can you say, shiny piece of shit? 

If you don't pay your rent it's usually for one of two reasons, you're a lying squatter who never intended to pay or the bottoms dropped out of your finances and you simply don't have the money. For the property owner, who cares, it's about the money. You don't pay, you don't live here. Unless of course you're a sitting member of the sycophant party in charge of Washington nowadays. Then you get a pass. For a while. 

After a suitable amount of time, you get evicted if you don't pay. It's the law. So let's all stay tuned into this one because it's a test case for the corrupted powers that be. Y'know, more of that law-n-order blathering and squealing about fake news while they bend the rest of us over the arm of the couch.

Let's see if the great orange one steps in to save the wayward congressman. I'm thinking NOT! Because Trump's a landlord and will default to that setting in a nanosecond. Let's just see what kind of bailout this cocksucker ends up with. Maybe we'll see him near the Capitol begging for shekels while promising he's following the mandate of the Murican people. Or maybe his PAC will set up a GoFundMe page.

Brother can you spare a million? 

Hunter S. Thompson would've known what to say...

Where's Hunter when you really need him? Dead, of course. And dear readers if you're not aware or have never heard of the man, check IMDB for Johnny Depp and back up a bit. Mr. Depp and earlier Bill Murray played him in movies and the former was a friend of the man. What I'm saying is that I'm old enough to know H.S. Thompson through his WORK instead of the shade that was Depp's and Murray's version of the man. Mannerisms, chicanery and the ever present cigarette holder aside, the man was a gifted writer and the preeminent "gonzo" reporter from 1960 through to his death in 2005. 

Nowadays he'd be pilloried for his prose. He simply didn't care about political correctness. He considered it the last defense of the indefensible and a bastion of cowardice. Me too. While the concept is laudable, it's the uneven application that puts my Fruit-of-the-Looms in a twist. I believe that's the prima facie reason Democrats have lost their way. They left behind the working man/woman for the faux Elysium of diversity, equity and inclusiveness. Again, nice concept unevenly applied. 

Hunter Thompson's words dragged us to the well of naked and unadorned truth and held us down by the neck until we slurped. He answered all the questions as great reportage is want of and more. He shined the light of a lava lamp seasoned by his acerbic wit and served up with a heapin-helpin of guffaws. As was always with Hunter, the fun was the context of his reporting and his drive to discover the truth no matter how twisted or convoluted the path. The things he loathed were many. The things he loved were many too.

During his time no one deserved his ire more than Richard Milhouse Nixon. He was relentless right up until the POTUS double peace signed the country before fucking off from the White House for the last time on Marine One. While Nixon's accomplishments were historical, it was his tomfoolery that cost him his job. It can be said that even Nixon knew when to leave. Trump has no such filter nor moral center. He would have had his co-conspirators shot before allowing them to testify. Or at least sent to Guantanamo hog tied and ball gagged.

We could use Hunter now. Unfortunately he was an original and did not come from a mold. His was a singular voice of his generation. With civil rights, Vietnam, Nixon and Wall Street he had fertile ground to plow. And he did so with aplomb. We miss you Hunter. If you haven't already insulted our Maker, maybe you could wrangle a name out of him for your replacement. We need them bad. Send them soon. Send them now.

The Undead and Other Nuisances...

So now the orange haired wonder is starting to babble openly and not just at his rallies. Hmm, better have him tested. I'm thinking when it's all said and punned, he'll be dead by his own hand. He will have dangled himself off his golden crapper. He will be watching Kamala's first State of the Union address buoyed by the roiling success of her first one hundred days. 

His brand now diminished the only outlets open for his blather are the tabloids. After the election, he retired as promised to his villa in Venezuela where he suffers rolling blackouts. He had his golden throne moved from Trump Tower just before the NY taxing authority seized the building along with a good portion of his remaining assets. They were not as large as he claimed. The new owners scooped up the property at the ensuing tax sale. It is now the world headquarters for a chain of dollar stores.

The Venezuelan police said he was on his golden toilet and the silk rope he had around his neck from the night before got picked up by his state-of-the-art autonomous vac system. The bot was passing by the bathroom and snagged the rope yanking him off his thrown in mid grunt. When the security team arrived they reported hearing a rhythmic thumping and squealing sounding like the Supreme Bloviator defiling another hamster. The local pet stores are sold out.

The vac was thumping against the door to the bathroom tethered to the lifeless form on the other side of the door. The Donald will be found blue lipped and bug-eyed lying face down in his own pee. His come-over lolling back in forth still attached behind one ear with a piece of tape. Before the darkness reclaims him, he scrawls upon the Italian marble floor, I wo...

Ivanka will identify the corpse by the Lil' Devil tattoo on his ass. Jared's cock cage will become infected having lost the key in 2019. Uday and Qusay will lock themselves in the powder room of dollar store tower's penthouse and attempt to snort their way through a pound of coke in one sitting. The coke will be laced with fentanyl yet they still do not die! They will however shit their pants and fall back in it.

We're running out of rope, sir...

I told someone, hell I told everyone that all we had to do was give Trump all the rope he wants because as sure as the sun is a ball of fusion he will eventually figure a way to hang himself. Little did I know that we would have to prevail upon rope making companies worldwide to meet the demand. Which illustrates my point, the rope is but a metaphor for just how far people will double down on the delusions of a madman.

Niccolo Machiavelli said that liars will always exist as long as people are willing to be lied to. Nuff said. If we all had bullshit meters turned up to eleven and had license to deliver one precise blow to the side of the head of any and all who deserve one, the world would be a sore place indeed. Open hand of course. We don't want damage. Rather a good jostle of the cogs, cams and gears of the mind. The brain is but a muscle and prone to atrophy as well.

Proof of this is at every Trump rally and I'm not picking on the boss but rather his minions. Hitler would have been nothing without Himmler, Goebbels and Goering. They were his co-conspirators along with many more unsavory characters. There were no small actors in his troupe of banal evil. No one survived Nazism unscathed. It was the rank and file German, the downtrodden suddenly transformed with purpose and a clear enemy toward which to hurl themselves. Jews were easy targets. The rest of the world didn't stand a chance.

All empires exist to invade, impose and extract by any means necessary for the glory of a king, queen or nation and sometimes all three. They invade and sublimate the inhabitants in order to extract any and all wealth to fill their coffers. Empires are expensive to run even with absconded goods and slave labor.

Ideas both good and bad take time to settle and take hold. The ground has to be fertile and the root stock ready. And we have to know that the bad ones are working just as hard to thrive. So it's up to each of us to caucus with the angels of our better nature and seek the right choice. Our way of life is at stake.

Immigrants schmimmigrants

The borderlands are fraught. Should we adopt the xenophobic route and continue putting up walls or just let 'em all in? Tell me, what's your answer for people trying to survive? Is it, go back to where you came from and fix your own damn country? Or is it, you poor souls let me get you some soup and citizenship papers?

In my time so far on this earth, I've born witness to the silly bullshit for brains attitude we aim at immigrants. I know the refrain, I don't have a problem with those that come here LEGALLY. Okay lets start with legal. Columbus was an illegal immigrant. Ask a native American how they celebrate Columbus Day. You'll get an ear full. At least a puzzled eye roll. In hindsight the natives should have slaughtered us on the beaches and scuttled the ships. Might have delayed the invention of the iPhone.

In the digital age I think it's safe to assume that none of us has any patience with any current solution offered up as a fix. As far as murder, rape and general mayhem committed by illegal aliens, get a grip people! Most folks are killed by people they know so you really should be a whole lot more anxious around your friends than any schmo that enters the U.S. without paperwork. 

 My question is this, where's the kindness? How do we as a country, the greatest the world has seen (so far) with the full set of tools at its disposal--end the crisis along our southern border? How about opening up an Ellis Island in the sand? How about knocking down those fucking walls (which all migratory animals will applaud) and create a chain of Ellis Islands along the border. Create funnels instead of walls to freedom. Make tax payers out of 'em in the process. Sure, they can't vote but who cares? They work for cheap till they make citizen. Then it's like joining a union. You get to pay dues (taxes) the rest of your life and you could get a piece of the good life.

But seriously isn't that the promise of America? Work hard, press every opportunity, be bold and damn the torpedoes? Tell me what's more American; some homegrown Jethro bitching about the plummeting price of peanuts on the world market or some hungry person from God-knows-where believing in that promise and willing to risk everything just to get here? It sure as hell ain't for free stuff and soft targets.

Let's open up a real conversation and hear from all parties involved and I'm not limiting it to the two we're stuck with. There's a real and substantive way to handle the question of immigration if we but have the will to find it and the courage to execute it. First, we need to appoint only native Americans to the task. Some will see the irony while others will tremble. That's America. Long may she flounder so beautifully.

I know there's something I'm forgetting. Probably something about infants and bath water.

Friends are always welcome

 Me and the missus, we did it. Turned away from all rabid factions. Covid had it's way with us too and we're still here. For sure some did not make it. Some fell for other reasons altogether. Heart attack, cancer, self-inflicted or whatever. Half of those that died of Covid had already succumbed to ignorance and suspicion long before the virus took them. Their reward was choking to death on what they didn't know. Instead, what they believed was ill suited for warding off contagion. Their faith may have been bigger than a mustard seed but the thing that killed them was microscopic. Strychnine would've been kinder.

We've gotten good at making all of our own meals now. Spend time dreaming of better days ahead. Together. Yes, we'll have two to go, please. Everything has to be portable. We're lightening the ship. Collections put up for auction, extras made scarce, if it hasn't been used in a year, hell, a decade, sell it, give it or Goodwill it! Lighter and nimbler is the aim. 

A hovel on a mountain is the goal. Some place off the beaten. Defensible. It's something we've talked about for years. A cabin in the woods. One with a view or set back in the trees near a brook with trout. Up past where the gravel ends. Down the red clay made hard by us and the neighbors and a scheduled road-grader. Up and up up up then around then down again till where the gravel picks up again. Up one more time then leveling out, you arrive at the gate. 

We are here. We heard your tires crunching gravel. Saw your approach on the critter cams. We're here waiting. Punch the code and come on up. Put it in park and set the brake. Just in case. There's good bourbon and comfort inside. Hurry in, a storm's coming. 

When the truth fails...

Okay, I have to admit something. I live in Florida and I'm a conservative. This is not something I am proud of right now. Of either one. But I digress too soon. First we need a little context.

Conquistadors made landfall near St. Augustine in 1565 and shortly thereafter... aw hell, you know what happened and the natives didn't have a say much less a chance. Florida has entertained its share of villainy and prosperity in equal measure. From the aforementioned Spaniards to the Brits to pirates to slavers, to common profiteers, St. Augustine was just the tip of the spear with regards to what men will do in the name of king, queen, country or company when really it's always just about the money.

Fast forward to now and it doesn't take a degree to understand that this place, like most of America, either by way of the sword, bullets or the common cold succumbed to Manifest Destiny. I'm guessing the Timucua had never heard of herd immunity. Back then we spelled genocide another way--progress. 

Now a pudgy malignancy named Ron DeSantis, our current gov, has become a darling of the Tea Party cum neo-Nazi MAGA hat wearing set that have infected, nay, subverted the GOP. The Republicans are no longer the standard bearers of conservatism but rather a brutish bug-eyed buffoonery normally associated with survivalists, lynchings and Trump rallies. Bobert, Taylor-Green, and Gaetz are but minions. Blindly supportive, loyal to a fault, cultish and mostly lacking in any walking around sense.

They either cannot nor will not stand right-wise to the truth. Rather the truth is buried under a flurry of denial and misdirection and capped off with a two ton slab of certainty. And people loooooooove certainty. Goes right along with their notions of right and wrong. They like things tidy. Neatly wrapped in sanctity and slathered in dogma with a side of damnation. 

Personally, I think they've lost their way inside Donald Trump's colon, can't tell up from down and apparently not one of them brought a flashlight. Or any walking around sense. But I have not lost mine. My conservatism is intact. Theirs is a barrel of rotting fish left on the dock in August. If we would just kick it off so the bottom feeders could appropriately deal with the contents, we might all sleep better. 

Till that day comes, DeSantis will continue to take a cue from his progenitor and lie about anything and everything that he deems worthy to perjure himself for as long as it makes him look presidential. Like he said, "The future of America is at stake!" Heck, even a blind pig finds an acorn once in awhile.

DeSantis is proof of concept for the neo-GOP and their corporate handlers. Remake local governments into fiefdoms for the party. Control the spin into a downward spiral and blame the Democrats when anything gets wonky. They are the bringers of all things terrible. To socialize with a Democrat is to ladle the steaming contents of Das Kapital into your lap without benefit of pants or even a dinner napkin. Even if they are your beloved family members and neighbors you must demean, deride, demonize, deplore and blame them for all our country's woes.

If by chance the Democrats manage to lose again, I know DeSantis will celebrate by grabbing his own ass with both hands so he can fuck the remaining oxygen out of the room. There's a whole lot of smoke in the DeSantis household but not one friggin mirror. This is what we get in Florida's GOP owned state house and gov'nors mansion. More of the same. A grandstanding wind bag who'll spend taxpayer dollars to redistribute immigrant families to other states and blame the Democrats all while making friends in low places everywhere. Lord help us!

It's the crime, er uh the climb, baby...

Alright already!  President Good Brain is officially a loser!  I say, Godspeed for that cumquat color coiffed carpetbagger!  Now it's time for him to dance with the Southern District of New York and answer for his talents.  But politics being a bloodless sport [insert wink here] we here in the real world will have to carry on while he bangs the drum for reinstatement while trying to plug all the holes in the Big Lie.

I'm thinking CPAC has a gold-leaf lined glory-hole somewhere off to the side where a coterie of only the most ardent supplicants kneel and pay for the privilege to hear a loop of his best snark thrown at the poor, the immigrant, every liberal and Mike Pence [who will never be forgiven]. You'll need to ask a German national of a certain age to understand the implications for the future. 

For me, I remember when you didn't touch the flag with your bare hands.  This guy gropes, smooches and dry-humps the flag on stage and the very folks who drilled into my soft head that the flag was as sacred a symbol as Jesus on the cross gave that POS a standing ovation.  So for this guy, the only mountain he hasn't climbed yet is the last one. The one where the reward is sitting at the right hand of God. Jesus better watch out. You can imagine the latest speech in his ongoing usurpation campaign...

Virgin births are overrated. He's only half Jewish! How do we know he wasn't just the spawn of some one-night stand with a Roman soldier. We all know women love a uniform. The place was crawling with them. I have a gardener named Jesus. I'm just saying, do we really want a savior from some no-name shit-hole in the middle east with all his minor miracles, a fish in every basket... fake news, people!  

Wouldn't you rather have an extremely successful world class real estate developer with great hair from the greatest city on Earth to lead you into the light?  

Your call.

A brave new whaaaa...

I quit.  Specifically, I quit reading the newspaper.  Cold turkey.  Blackout on the daily read and wrangle.  Guess what, my blood pressure dropped back into normal range too.  Coincidence?  Maybe.  Or maybe eating right and going to the gym helped.  I mean, it did before I stopped reading the paper.  Anyway, it was the constant gyre and gimble in the wabe that got to me.  The POTUS is this the POTUS is that sort of stuff.  The POTUS is.  And that's all there is till next time.

Even so, I am still perplexed.  In the history of the realm, our greatest presidents moved the country with their words in a positive direction together.  Think Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Kennedy, Reagan and even Obama.  Theirs was a voice of reason and of binding together.  That cannot be said of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  A man who placates neo-Nazis and white supremacists while blaming the left for calling him out and being the left.

Knowing that Trump will go down as an aberration and not a harbinger gives me comfort.  He has served as I predicted and has not deviated from the course I believed he would chart during his tenure.  That of blowing up MY party [Republican] and dividing the nation through segregation, exclusion and demonization.  As long as the economy holds, the country is his oyster.  And he came to shuck.  This has always been his way.  The zebra cannot change its stripes.

His too is the way of all populist despots.  Pump up your base by feeding their fear and prejudice with nostalgia.  Promise them Nirvana and pillory the naysayers.  Call them sore losers.  Losers!  His is ever thus a world of bluster over substance.  Of prenuptial and nondisclosure agreements and a plurality of barristers.  Of patting himself on the back because well no one else can do it as well as he can.

His presidency will be remembered as one of deepened deficit spending leading to even deeper national indebtedness and environmental degradation while reassuring us that it's going to be so good, tremendous and beautiful that we'll become sick of it. That last part he got right.  Even now some of his minions have begun to question their decision in following such a man.  To that I say, about damn time and pass the barf bags.

The world's worst hangover...

The morning after is coming.

Half of our countrymen [and women] have partaken in a bit too much of the T-rum-punch.  I'm talking about that elixir of deliverance they believed would reorder nature and send us all in the way-back machine to a version of America more pure, more moral and definitely more white.  The core of his supporters are the angry disenfranchised post-industrial fodder of our hollowed-out heartland. And Evangelicals. They've had honey poured in their ears and are just a little too happy to feed their babies to the beast.

Recently, I heard a reporter traveling through that same heartland asking Trump supporters what they think about the job the POTUS is doing.  With few exceptions they intoned that he was doing what he promised and putting money in their pockets because "he alone" could do these things.  They are punch drunk.  Not the sappy I really love you man type of drunk but more the blood-eyed-frothing-at-the-mouth-crazy-enough-to-kill-you-if-you're-not-onboard-the-Trump-train-to-Hell kind of drunk.  Who says evangelicals don't drink?

The hangover will be intense and there will be little relief save for clarity and aspirin.  Some will reach for hair of the dog while others will swear off voting altogether.  I'm hoping Phizer will come up with a version of Antabuse for stupidity.  They should setup carts in front of polling stations and dispense it free of charge.  Side effects may include but are in no way limited to improved hygiene, better posture, moving into the right lane when someone flashes their lights at you in rear-view mirror, clarity about your fiancee', finances and less carbs. 

Even without such a panacea some will see themselves for the first time, own up to their mistake and be better for it.  My fear is that too many will curse the light and double down.  For them there will be no tonic nor elixir save for more disgust and disillusionment.

Mores the pity because they're good people who've simply bought into a lie from a professional liar because they need so desperately to believe in their convictions. And therein lies the essence of the problem, that of emotion over thoughtfulness. Beliefs over facts. It's what Hitler used to rally his nation. We know how that turned out.

Despots have always had that working in their favor--the ability to move their base in the direction of and sometimes beyond the firey gates. No one is safe. Just ask a Jew. Or a native American. Or a Bosnian. Or an Armenian. Or a Uyghur. I could keep going but... belief is more powerful than facts.

Something going around...

Regarding the hubbub around the removal of Confederate monuments, can there be a better example of history revised proving that history is mutable under scrutiny?  As an American by birth and a Southerner by geography, I am neither a fan nor hater of such monuments.  But why not contextualize them instead of hiding them?  Make an addendum.  We learn things by addition and once a thing is learned it is darn near impossible to un-learn.  Especially after being mythologized.  Johnny-Rebs rule 'round heunh!

Fans of the Confederate battle flag always opine that it’s heritage instead of bigotry.  This is the same argument about the Civil War being waged over state’s rights.  And it was.  But, the linchpin of state’s rights was precisely the maintenance of slavery.  Everything else shows up reflected in the rear view mirror and objects may appear much farther away than…

Why not add a ring of empty slave manacles to the base of every Confederate monument?  Add a placard explaining why the war was fought and why we lost and America won!  And don’t the victims of slavery deserve to be honored as well?  Wasn't it their tears, sweat and blood that consecrated the ground around every plantation in the South for over two hundred fifty years before the war that abolished the practice?  Or was their blood not red enough?

But seriously, some southern men of a certain age are like an inebriated Kentucky colonel with his pants down around his ankles chasing a young Nubian princess promising, "It's all good, everyone loves white meat." Like anyone wants to hear nor God forbid see anymore old whitey bullshit.

The South indeed has to atone but I can argue that the country has even more to answer for starting with  native Americans.  I believe the only polite thing to do is to allow them to go first.  Start at Jamestown and enumerate the treaties we broke [all of them] along the way to where we stand today with regards to the first peoples--the first Americans.  Do that, then we can talk about reparations for slavery.  That's only fair.  Hey you, back in line!

If the sins of the father are visited on his children, shouldn’t we take better care for the sake of our own?  So why not honor the sacrifices of the victims?  We owe history and the future the truth.  Warts and all.  It's a bitter pill for southerners but one that has to be taken.  Bottoms up!