Sunday, September 26, 2010

IT'S A MAN THING.

MALE GENDER

The physical differences between males and females are obvious. The psychological differences, however, are not so obvious, but are astounding. It is absolutely impossible to compare men and women using the same scale. It is also impossible for men to understand women, and I am sure the opposite must also apply.

It’s a mistake to try and describe the differences between sexes (men are from Mars women are from Venus) by looking for some intellectual explanation. This might work if we were totally rational creatures like Spock on Star Trek – but we are not. We are searching too high, pretending we are something we are not. We find it easy to ignore the fact that we are just animals. We walk upright; we have developed a language; we clothe our bodies; and, because of our opposed thumbs, are able to control our environments. But, we are still animals - and male and female animals each have specific functions in the Animal Kingdom.

Maybe that’s to simplistic. What intellect we do possess constantly classes with our instincts. We try to understand our feelings, and justify our actions, while trying to discern the feelings and actions of others. Men are able to understand the actions of other men, because we have similar instincts and feelings, but for a man to actually understand the actions of a woman is impossible. We do not have the same emotional make-up nor share the same instincts. To make things even more impossible, the current politically correct trend is to consider all gender as unisex and deny two hundred and fifty million years of animal development.

So what do we know about men and women? I can tell you about men. I’m an authority on men. I am one.

I can also give you my impression of women, but it must be all conjecture. I can only describe what I see and have experienced after filtering it through my male point of view. ( See next week's Blog.)



MEN



Most men are rational animals. We see things with an analytic view. Math, geometry and science are our best subjects in school. We look at a wobbly chair and know that the screws need to be tightened. If our car make an unknown noise it sends us searching for a cause. We enjoy competitive games. We enjoy an element of danger. We like action movies. We are all capable of anger and killing. We are prone to respond violently to insults, wrongs and injuries. Physical intimidation and war is our natural response for settling differences. We are capable of extreme loyalty to friends and are willing to face death for a principle. We look at all moderately good looking women as sexual objects. We are less concerned with our looks and more concerned with our image. We can have sex without love, but love is synonymous with sex.

We all live in a world that men built: from the pyramids of Egypt to the Big Dig in Boston. Men constructed the cities and the roadways, built governments and fought for conquest. We tamed the oceans and the air and exploited the environment for our species. I’m not saying that what we have is good, and couldn’t have been improved with more female input, but mankind’s place on this earth has been determined by the actions of men.



I mentioned the male ego. Among males you are either a leader, or a follower, or a victim. In young males this position is generally defined by physical prowess. In adult life business success and money may replace physical prowess. However, neither business success, nor money nor physical ability necessarily confers leadership (the alpha male.) Being the alpha (you-th-man) is an attitude. It is total self-confidence and being comfortable with your manhood. The alpha looks at no one as his better and few as his equal. It is total ego. We’re back to animal behavior. The alpha male gets the pick of the females. Every man knows his positions: those that are alpha are confident; those that want-to-be are insecure; those that know they aren’t are followers; and the ostracized turn away from the heard and graze until picked off by the want-to-bes.



Being an alpha male is a great feeling, and regardless of her frustration a woman will never experience that feeling. Only the female with her cross-threaded reality could, at the same time, desire and despise confident manhood.



Now, I know I had a fucked-up childhood. But in the south, young white males of the 1950’s (that is the only group I can speak for) were following a well-defined path to gender identity. You knew that as soon as you could get your driver’s license, fuck a female, drink straight whiskey without gagging, smoke a cigar, chew tobacco, and kill a deer you’d be a man. As a man you could go out to deer camp with the rest of the men – a place where no women were allowed - a place where men were men. You could drink, spit and cuss. You could walk inside with muddy boots, smoke a cigar and dump the ashes on the floor; you could eat raw meat, fart and laugh about it, ogle the calendar of necked women on the wall and tell dirty jokes. With gun in hand and a hangover you would sit on your deer stand and feel like a man. Nietzsche said that men should be trained for war and women for the recreation of the warriors - and young boys who became men in my generation in the south felt like warriors. There was no gender confusion. The male was the alpha animal of the gender and the female was for his recreation.



Women have always been attracted by alpha male behavior. But true to their unfathomable mental processes, once married, women systematically go about neutering their man. “Take your shoes off on the new carpet, smoke outside, you drink too much, don’t drive so fast, not tonight – you’ve already had it once this week.” It is an insidious process that turns the husband into some milk toast that his wife would not have liked when she was single. It really is the fault of the man however, for we’ll do anything for peace and a piece. Like Nietzsche, the ideal situation might be for men to live together in hunting camps and ride their motorcycle down the road to the whorehouse whenever they need feminine companionship



However, in the politically correct United States of today we are encouraged to view males and females as a unisex, genderless soup. Many young males growing up today have no sense of identity. A young male will have female teachers, work under a woman at McDonalds, have a female sergeant when he joins the military, and find female authority figures everywhere he goes. If he ever dares assert his masculinity he will be reminded of his despicable nature and his obligation to always be submissive and genderless. This social more is in total contradiction with the nature of male animal instinct.



I think that the Possum Pledge at the Possum Lodge on the Red Green Show speaks for the politically correct attitude toward manhood: “I am a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess.”



Now, this may sound like I resent women. That is the farthest thing from the truth. I idolize women. They are the most beautiful, desirable, fascinating creatures on the face of the earth. They are so naturally different from men in every way they become our obsession. I was raised to admire women, respect women, protect women and I adore my wife; but, somehow competing against women, to me, seems like an unnatural state.



I am a man, and I make no apologies for it.

Monday, September 20, 2010

TO BEGIN WITH THE BEGINNING, LET'S BEGIN WITH THE BEGINNING: MAN

MANKIND (THE CORRUPT PISSANT.)



Man: past, present and future.



Who the hell are we that we hold ourselves in such high regard that we invent gods like us?



Man (in some form) has been on this earth for only four to five million years. That may seem like a long time, but in comparison with the universe’s five billion years (plus or minus) it amounts to a snowflake in a snowstorm. (The tendency here was to use some analogy referring to a fart – but I have already done that.)



Our species, with its egocentric intellect and piercing insight, has divided all life on this planet into two categories: human and non-human. WE (the human race) have decided that human life is important, and not-human life exists to serve OUR needs and pleasures. Non-human life we divided into animal and vegetable. Few people, in their conscious moments, actually consider themselves an animal; but, when we follow out the chain of evolution it’s obvious that man is only another branch of the animal kingdom. However, we hold our self-importance in view of our superior intellect.



Human intelligence: Now don’t get me started. If we display human intelligence on a bell curve the norm (middle) would fall somewhere within low mediocrity: people barely able to operate within the bottom three rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy



Physiological needs: food, water, elimination, warmth, rest, avoidance of pain, sexual release.

Safety needs: protection from the environment through clothing and housing, security from crime and financial hardship.

Love and belonging needs: desire for affection, and acceptance into a group.



If we look at the back end of the curve we find a tremendous percent of the population that is borderline retarded. These people tend to breed borderline retarded children, and at this time their birthrates are higher than the general population, which steadily skews the norm downward.



On the front end of the curve we find people capable of operating at a level to supply their need for self esteem and for aesthetic gratification (Maslow’s fourth and sixth). Finally, there are only the smallest percent of humans capable of cognitive understanding and self-actualization, and most of this last group can operate only within some limited autistic field. . (I know Maslow’s hierarchy was not designed to demonstrate intelligence, but the level where people exist is a good indication of their mental capability.)



Where are my statistics? I don’t have any. But if you want an insight to the average man on the back side of the curve just check out any Tea Bagger political rally, or you can tune your radio to RAP music or listen to Glen Beck on Fox Network. The list is unending: Suicide bombers - David Keresh followers - Jim Jones followers, Heaven’s gate. If you read Carolyn Chute you’ll recognize that the Beans of Egypt Maine are the norm on the back side of the Bell Curve.



Can you make a case for an intelligent human race? Good luck.



Let’s take a look at this animal group we call human. Biologists divide all animals into different levels depending on certain features. The biological classification for Humans reads similar to any other animal on earth.



THE BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION (TAXONOMY) OF MODERN HUMANS:



LEVEL NAME FEATURE

Kingdom Animalia Animal

Phylum Chordata Spinal Cord

Subphylum Vertebra Segmented backbone

Superclass Tetrapoda Four limbs

Class Mammalia Suckle young

Subclass Theria Live birth

Infraclass Eutheria Placenta

Order Primates Most highly developed

Superfamily Hominoidea Human-like

Family Hominidae Two-legged

Genus Homo Human

Species Sapiens Modern human



*Note: with the exception of Genus and Species our taxonomy is identical to the chimpanzee



I feel, Biologists have fallen short in their classification of humans (and perhaps other animals as well), and that one more level – Gender - should be added to identify sex. The male and female of the Human species are as far apart as lions and gazelles in physiological and psychological make-up. To identify a single animal we must denote sex. But, this is fuel for another fire.



The bottom line is that we are omnivorous, bipedal animals whose closest kin in the animal kingdom is the chimpanzee (According to Vincent Sarich and Allen Wilson of the University of Berkley, the DNA of blood protein of human and chimpanzee differed only by 1.6 percent.) Being omnivorous, meat is an important source of our protein. Humans as well as chimpanzees have always been willing to kill other animals to supply their protein needs. For humans as well as chimpanzees cannibalism has been recorded. Humans, like their chimpanzee cousins, wage war and genocide (only we do it more efficiently.) Humans have bigger brains and larger penis than chimpanzees but smaller testes. Also the gluteus muscle that attaches to the enlarged posterior portion of the human pelvis is huge as compared to other quadrupeds, proving that we are the biggest asses of the animal kingdom



With the anthropological, biological and DNA cataloging that has been done to date, it is blatant ignorance to try and deny evolution. It is like holding on to the belief that the earth is the center of the universe and everything in the cosmos rotates around the earth. Yet, fundamentalists Christians still (successfully in many backward states) try. They deny evolution because in their doctrine man is created in God’s image, and if evolution were true that would mean that God looks like Lucy (Australopithecus Afarensis.)
Adam and Eve



Mankind is the most dangerous and destructive life form that has ever existed on this earth. We have proven more dangerous to other species than the dinosaurs and more deadly than the plague. We don’t kill just for food or defense. We kill because it is our nature. Young boys grow up playing army and cowboys – pretending to kill. Most interactive video games that young adults prefer - roll play killing. The NRA would like every American armed with a concealed weapon: the idea being that you can kill them before they can kill you. Now, we factor in nuclear weapons and commercial environmental destruction, and it is just a tossup which will wipe us all out first. Scientists tell us our sun will someday become a red dwarf and bring an end to our universe, but I don’t think we need worry about that.



To understand mankind and his niche on this earth we must start at the beginning. Around 5 billion years ago the earth was formed. The time from earth’s formation until approximately 545 million years ago is known as the Precambrian Era. During this era bacteria emerged; and, toward the end of the era multi-celled life began.



During the Paleozoic Era (from 545 to 251 million years ago) there was an explosion of underwater life forms. Shellfish, fish, sea animals, amphibians and reptiles evolved.



The Mesozoic Era (251 to 65 million years ago) began with a devastating extinction resulting in ninety percent of life being destroyed. During this period dinosaurs evolved to dominance and we find evidence of lower forms of mammal life.



The Cenozoic Era (65 million years ago to present) also began with a mass extinction, possibly caused by an asteroid or comet colliding near the Yucatan Peninsular. The dinosaurs were gone. The earth cooled. Rainforest gave way to grasslands and woods, and mammals diversified. About 4 million years ago the first members of the human family of primates emerged in Africa.



If you were to layout a time-line of the earth using one inch as a million years it would stretch to almost a hundred and thirty yards (longer than a football field.) On that time-line man would only been present for four inches and modern man (Homo-Sapien) for one one-hundredth of an inch.



New discoveries in Africa and China are adjusting what we know about the decent of man, and like computers our family tree is being constantly updated. Through the archeological record we have trace our lineage back between 38 and 26 million years ago to Aegyptopithecus, a small twelve-pound monkey. Between 23 and14 million years ago we find Proconsul, a chimpanzee like creature evolved. Ramapithecus, about 7 million years old, was a three to four-foot tall upright walking ape. Finally, about 4 million years ago our line leads to the direct ancestor Australopithecus (which if not the beginning of our line – is near the beginning.)



Australopithecus could be called an ape-man. He was smaller than today’s humans, had a larger brain than an ape, walked on two legs, lived in bands and hunted with clubs.



Next in line, about 2 million years ago, we find Homo-Habilis. He was primitive and made stone tools and constructed shelters.



Next, came Homo-Erectus that lived between 1.5 million years ago and 400,000 years ago. Erectus’ brain was twice the size of Australopithecus. He stood about five feet tall and was the first hominid to leave Africa. He built huts, cooked food, invented tools, had a language and lived in bands.



Between 230,000 and 30,000 years ago we come to a split (probably not the first) in our lineage. Neanderthal branches away and becomes a dead-end link. Because of the many European archeological sites we know quite a bit about Neanderthal. Neanderthal had a three-pound brain - comparable to our own. He spoke a language, lived in caves, made tools, hunted with spears and buried his dead. He was stockier than modern man and had somewhat simian facial features. It has been said that if you put Neanderthal in a suite and let him walk through a mall, no one would give him a second look.



Neanderthal was replaced, some believe exterminated, by Cro-Magnon, which existed from 40,000-10,000 years ago. Cro-Magnon was replaced by modern man (Homo-Sapien) about 10,000 years ago. Cro-Magnon painted on cave walls, made pottery, built nets and spears and traps. He lived a tribal life and except for his more primitive life is not particularly distinct from Homo-Sapien. For some reason (just like declaring Europe a separate continent from Asia) we have decided to distinguish ourselves from Cro-Magnon and call ourselves Homo-Sapien or modern man.



Now, this has been a general representation and by no means a complete picture. The spaces in-between and at the beginning of this lineage are being filled in by today’s anthropologist, paleontologist, archeologist and with the great advances of DNA science.



At any rate, the human race today seems to prefer to present itself as ten thousand years old. We are fairly newcomers and have risen to the top of the food chain remarkably fast, but like the dinosaurs our time will pass. The next dominant life form on this earth will undoubtedly be the insect. We all know the cockroach is here to stay, and how about the population explosion of ants around the world? Anyone from Maine who has suffers through the summer bug seasons of black flies, deer flies, no-seeums, midges, misquotes, wasp and hornets will attest to the awesome power of the insect. Even Mark Twain in Letters to the Earth declared that God was a fly.



There we have it; so much for the divine dominance of the human race. When I look at our species I see ignorance, cruelty, egocentricity, manipulation and deceit as the norm. As individuals most humans are amiable enough but as a group we are a disaster to our environment, ourselves and the other creatures we share this earth with.



So, where do we go from here? The human being is obviously getting larger. Today’s generation has been raised on fast foods, and between televisions, computers and automobiles we have developed a sedentary existence. We are taller than our forefathers and due to our diets and inactivity obesity is becoming pandemic. (Of course we make excuses by saying that obesity is a sickness; but, to paraphrase George Carlin; when did eating too much become a fucking disease?)



When we see humongous fat people, to large to walk, riding around the supermarkets in electric carts shopping for food – are we looking at the future of the human race? Add to this the depletion of the ozone layer that is allowing dangerous sun rays to enter our atmosphere and we could speculate a time when the race becomes nocturnal. And, let’s not forget the kids walking around all day with earphones plugged into their ears…hearing loss?



So there we have it: mankind of the future – a huge, deaf, nocturnal blob of flesh that eats its own children (we will have killed all the other animal life,) riding around in motorized chairs with our only sensory input coming from virtual reality glasses.



Of course, that’s ridiculous. Remember? We are all allotted three score and ten and like Miss Marple I shall soon be overdrawn – and when I am gone this world will no longer exist.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

SOUTHERN POLITICS, SEGREGATION, AND THAT OL’TIME RELIGION

The transposition of the Democratic and Republican Parties:




In the 1940’s and early 50’s the main political power in the south was the Democratic Party. My grandmother’s sister was married to Fielding Wright who was governor of the state of Mississippi from 1946 until 1952. Even though politics was far from anything I was concerned with it existed in my peripheral world. President Truman had desegregated the military, and the heavy southern political players of that day were concerned about a possible move to desegregate the south. In 1948 they came together in a common effort to oppose racial integration and to retain Jim Crow laws and the southern racial segregated status-quo. Fielding Wright, Mississippi Senator John Stennis, Mississippi Senator Allen Eastland, Louisiana’s Russell B. Long and South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond were among the movers and shakers of this movement. They decided that if the Democratic Party introduced a platform of integration in their 1948 convention, they would break away and form a third party.



As expected, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota made a speech urging the Party to adopt an anti-segregationist plank, and thirty-five southern members walked out of the convention.



The States’ Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats) was formed with a party slogan of “Segregation Forever!” The party ran Strom Thurmond for president and Fielding Wright for vice-president. On Election Day, the Thurman-Wright ticked carried Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, receiving 1,169,021 popular votes and 39 electoral votes.



The defeat of the Dixiecrats was the defining point in which disenchanted southern Democrats begin to change party affiliation. Over the next ten years most southern Christian Democrats were assimilated into the Republican Party



It is a remarkable change when you think about it. The Republican Party (once the Party of Lincoln and champion of human rights) is now the party of the financial elite, southern Christian fundamentalist and covert racist, while the Democratic Party is the party of the middle class, the ethnic and the poor.



That Ol'Time Religion
When I graduated from high school in 1959, Mississippi was still segregated and the attitudes of the white people were to keep it that way. The problem was more than just racial stereotyping. Much of the prejudice and intolerance came from That Old Time Religion.  If you have ever seen the movie Inherit the Wind then you have seen a snapshot of the religious influence in the south during my childhood.  



Religion was everything in the south in the 1940-50’s; and, even today, like a cognitive black hole, it doesn’t permit the light of reason and common sense to exist. In the south of my childhood religious affiliation determined your social status. I was taught to believe that the “better” people attended the Episcopal Church (my grandmother was Episcopalian,) people of mediocrity were Methodist, and the Southern Baptist existed for the not too bright lower class. Any other religions attracted only white trash. Protestant religions, of course, were the only ones that counted.   Segregation was the covert connection between the churches and the KKK.   The Klan professed protection of white supremacy and Christianity - many members of the community were Klan members or sympathizers. 



This was the religious indoctrination that was subtly proposed among my family. I am sure that parents belonging to different denominations adjusted the spectrum to their affiliation.



The majority of the white people in Rolling Fork were Southern Baptist. The Baptist added extra commandments such as women shall not wear make-up, and dancing is a sin. They were constantly looking for sin in everything. On Sunday you could hear the Baptist preacher shouting a block away from the church. Even though the black churches were also Southern Baptist (churches were segregated) the white Baptist knew that the “Negro Baptist” would not go to the same heaven as the good church going white people.



As you might guess, I am not a big proponent of religion. But, I find the fundamentalist of any religion scary, and the Southern Baptist surely qualifies as fundamentalist. These people refuse logic, deny science and reject common sense. The only truth that exists in their world is their tunnel view of biblical interpretation. Their view is rigid, never changing. People with different views are their enemies. Change is their enemy. They are entrenched against change. They live to declare enemies.



A trait of the fundamentalist congregation is their willingness to follow without question. This makes them easily manipulated by charismatic people willing to pay lip service to their beliefs.



For the white people of Mississippi politics was next in importance to church. The easily manipulated fundamentalist sects, who pervaded the south, gave rise to the colorful old time southern politicians. Some of these men like Earl Long of Louisiana are legendary. I feel fortunate to remember some of the last of the old time southern politicians.



Before television enabled politician to get in your home, men running for office had to ‘stump.’ They would travel around from town to town and speak to any group of people willing to listen. Back then the old time political campaigns often consisted of fried chicken and speeches on the court house lawn – for white voters. (Note: a manipulated literacy test prevented most black people from voting.)





Bigoted politicians and their fundamentalist constituency made integration of the South a difficult policy to carry out. Integration brought an end to Southern Good Old Boy politics.



When I graduated from high school in 1959 the south was still segregated, we were not at war and the Cultural Revolution of the young people had not begun.

But, the south was stepping into the era of southern, religious inspired racial mania aimed at keeping the segregated status quo through violence and intimidation of the black community.   The racial violence that was to ensue during the 1960's was the results of white fundamentalists southerners inability to deal with the reality that the time of white supremacy in the south was at an end. 

Today, the signs at Tea Party rallies declaring "We Want Our Country Back" indicate the seeds of racism and religious intolerance are still alive and well among a constant percentage of our population.  These "Tea Baggers" are unable to deal with a black president and a growing multi-cultural society.  Their dream is of a white Christian America, moving toward a Christian theocracy.  

On my next post I will continue with memories of a alien teen growing up in the Mississippi Delta and the defined path to gender identity.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

American Cival War or America Insanity of the 1860's

The American Civil War: Cause, Calamity and Results



Picture from Wikipedia: American Civil War

There was nothing glorious about the American Civil War. The Southern image of valor and patriotism dissolves when you realize that the war was fought solely on the issue of the continuation and spread of slavery. Like all wars, the Civil War was perpetrated by politicians with political aspirations; executed by ambitious military officers who considered war a valiant chess game; and, fought by middle and lower class young men who could be easily manipulated and were considered expendable.



The carnage of the Civil War  was on an unprecedented scale. Weaponry had advanced from the inaccurate, smooth bore muskets of the Revolutionary War to more effective weapons with increased accuracy and more rapid loading capabilities. Yet, the war was fought with Revolutionary War tactics where armies lined up against each other at point blank range and opened fire. It was a slaughter.



In 1860 the U.S. population was thirty-one million. As a result of the Civil War over a half-million young men (600,000+) died. To place this in to some kind of perspective we can compare it to a U.S. death toll of 58,000 after seven years of war in Viet Nam:

• In the single Battle of Gettysburg – 51,000 died

• Chickamaga – 34,000

• Chancellorsville – 30,000

• Spotsylvania – 30,000

And the list goes on. Approximately one out of every 30 living males listed in the 1860 census died as a result of the Civil War.



Timeline to the Civil War



We can trace events leading to the Civil War back to 1818. At that time there was a balance of 11 free states and 11 slave states, but Missouri wanted to enter the union as a slave state. In 1820 Henry Clay proposed the Missouri Compromise allowing Missouri to enter as a slave state and Maine to enter as a free state, keeping a balance of slave and free states. The Compromise, however, carried a rider that slavery would be prohibited north of 36-30 latitude (then the Kansas/Nebraska territory.)



Between 1821 and 1850 six more states were admitted to The Union: Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin as free states, and Arkansas, Florida and Texas as slave states.



1848 was a busy year: the Mexican War added new land; The Wilmont Proviso asked Congress to outlaw slavery (it was defeated); The Free Soil Party was formed - advocating freedom for slaves; President Zachary Taylor, a pro-slavery southerner, won the Presidency.



In 1850 California wanted to enter the Union as a free state. Fighting broke out on the floor of the Senate and Senator Foote threatened to shoot Senator Benton. Senator Calhoun of South Carolina threatened secession. Daniel Webster warned of civil war. President Taylor died that year and was replaced by Filmore. In an attempt to placate both sides Clay and Douglas proposed the Compromise of 1850. In the Compromise, California would enter as a free state; lands gained from Mexico would be divided into New Mexico and Utah, and would be allowed to decide the slave issue by vote; slave trade in Washington D.C. would end, but a tough fugitive slave law would be enacted.



In 1852 Harriet Beacher Stow ignited northern sympathy with her book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Douglas proposed the Kansas Nebraska Act, which divided the Kansas/Nebraska territory into two states with the slave issue left up to a vote. This act was contrary to the Missouri Compromise, which had already designated the Nebraska/Kansas territory as slave free. When elections were held in Kansas, border ruffians from Missouri tried to fix the vote and Kansas exploded into violence (Bleeding Kansas.) To further exasperate the situation the Republican Party formed with a main platform of anti-slavery. In 1855 two governments exist in Kansas.



One-year later (1856) pro-slavery raiders sacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas. John Brown struck back killing and burning. Two hundred people were killed in Kansas that year.



In 1857 Dred Scott sued for freedom but the Supreme Court decided for the South, finding that slaves were property and not citizens and therefore had no rights. The Court also stated that Congress did not have the authority to outlaw slavery, which in effect made all states open to slavery.



In 1859 John Brown went east and attacked Harper’s Ferry Arsenal hoping to spark a slave rebellion. Brown was captured by Robert E. Lee and later hanged, creating a martyr for the anti-slavery cause.



In 1860 The South threatened to secede if Lincoln was elected president. Lincoln’s election was followed by the secession of South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.



In 1861 Lincoln took the oath of office. Confederates seize Federal forts in the south and attack Fort Sumter. The Civil War had begun.



The result of the Civil War was the abolition of slavery. But the Civil War itself should not be celebrated. It should be looked at as a grave lesson on the futility and savagery of using war to settle disputes between men.



Why has the South relived the Civil War for so many years? It’s because they lost. Winners pick up their guns and move on to the next war, but losers carry the hurt and resentment forever.



So where does this leave the North and the South? At first glance it seems the North had “the moral high ground” and the South was relegated to the position of decadent bigots. However, judging “human moral high ground” is like deciding between syphilis and gonorrhea. In reality, had slavery been as economically profitable for the north as it was for the south, it is likely that slavery would have continued into the twentieth-century.



Young people, with their lack of life experience, see things in black or white; right and wrong seem obvious. They can’t understand why the world is the way it is when they are capable of straightening out the ills of the worlds in one sentence – probably beginning with the word Like.



If you live to reach my age you realize that all human endeavors are not black or white but exist in shades of gray.



Back to me: it is all about me.

As a teenager I had only three goals: (1) To get laid. (2) To graduate from high school. (3) To get out of Mississippi.

I wasn’t particularly aware of the history developing around me. I was living in the decline of a segregated south, but my obsessions were tits, ass and motorcycles. However, looking back on these times, I realize that I witnessed not only a nation defining social change, but also a defining political transposition.



In my next Blog I will relate my memories of the South’s fight to retain segregation and the transposition of the Democratic and Republican parties.