Posted on 01/02/2007 9:48:31 AM PST by Monkey King
Plan B: the United State of Schwarzenegger
MEMO TO: Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Though you'll still be hobbling on crutches, Governor, your Inauguration on Friday will surely be a blast. With Donna Summer and Jennifer Holliday belting out songs at your $1.4 million party, and Paul Anka re-creating the lyrics to "My Way" to pay homage, no one can accuse you of backing away from your showbiz roots.
So let's get real, Governor -- your political career is just warming up. If your rhetoric can galvanize the California electorate, why stop there?
Sure, we all realize the constraints on foreign-born presidents, but that's a pedestrian gameplan anyway. In your Hollywood career, you've always come up with dramatic ways to leap over obstacles.
So let's look at Plan B, which you and I casually discussed some time ago. It's dramatic, it's historic, and who's to say it's impractical?
Yes, we're talking secession here. With the Gubernator firmly at the helm under Plan B, California will secede from the Union, declaring its sovereignty as the world's sixth-biggest economy.
All this may sound like a return to the "nullification movement" of Civil War days, but consider the historical precedents. The Israelite tribes seceded from the Davidian kingdom after the death of Solomon in 933 B.C. and prospered. Venezuela has done pretty well having seceded from Colombia in 1830. Some of the Russian states have prospered having been liberated from the fast-sinking Soviet Union. Canada's clearly going to let Quebec go some day soon, and those folks don't even want to speak English.
California is too vital and free-thinking to be dragged down by the U.S. any longer. As you well know, Governor, all Texans want to do is declare war on obscure countries, and we haven't won one of those in 60 years. The evangelicals own the South, and California isn't ready for their social agenda. The mandarins of New York and Boston have lost their political muscle -- all they can bring to us is more Clintons and John Kerry.
A liberated California would be an instant global force, Governor, and would provide you with a messianic platform. Trade would soar, incomes would rise and the government could lavish its resources on infrastructure and education rather than foreign wars. Who needs Washington's pathetic "entitlements" when we could create our own?
There are risks, to be sure; the Bushies would threaten Civil War, but they don't have any soldiers left to fight one. Some smarmy Justice Dept. bureaucrat would cite Chapter 115 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which terms rebellion a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment, but South Carolina was getting away with its secession in 1861 until a few loser states like Mississippi and Alabama horned in on its act.
Besides, that was all about slavery, and we're talking higher precepts now. A sovereign California would be liberated from a profligate, warrior national government whose interests are inconsistent with those of California. As you know better than anyone, Governor, all California wants is to be rich and flakey. In what other part of the world could a Hollywood, a Burlingame and a Cucamonga peacefully co-exist?
So here's the deal, Governor: First, you rally state voters (you know how to make that work for you). Then you petition Congress, reminding those lazy bozos of Daniel Webster's argument in 1830 that the Constitution is merely a treaty among the many states, not some celestial doctrine that can never be modified.
With this in mind, consider your inauguration in proper context, Governor. This isn't merely the beginning of a second term. It's the start of Plan B -- the birth of a new nation-state and a new career.
As they used to tell us, tomorrow the world.
Just read and wonder at the many, many facets of lunacy and insult that is a Peter Bart column.
Major below the line layoffs in the 4Q this past year for TV - also shrinking pool of prod. work in Calif. for film - Runaway production taking bigger and bigger slices of the pie.
AB 777 didn't pass - AGAIN - this past year in Sacramento, so that's even more production lost overseas in 2007.
The numbers may look good compared to last season, but remember how bad the numbers were then?
"Then you petition Congress, reminding those lazy bozos of Daniel Webster's argument in 1830 that the Constitution is merely a treaty among the many states, not some celestial doctrine that can never be modified. "
Um, Peter, you need to read your history a little more closely. Webster was a strong unionist. I think Calhoun is the name you are looking for here.
On a second point, I think it would be incredible if Cali cut loose. Let em go! Please! Go! (NOW!)(on a serious note, we can still do a free trade/currency/joint defense deal and get along just fine. No need to be siblings, though, when we can be distant cousins, if you get my drift).
Jimmy Carter was also a Nobel prize winner and so was Yasser Arafat. Don't get me into the Nobel Prize. Please!
USC didn't play a good game so much as Michigan didn't play a good second half.
Not to take anything away from USC - they did well; certainly better than they played with UCLA. Michigan could have and should have given them a better game.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
There go two dem senators and the dem senate majority, too.
But still - California is American. They can have it when they pry it out of my cold dead hands. </macho>
Well, I'd be one of the first to join the insurgency... AGAINST ARNOILD!!! (snart!)
"Cal Berkeley and Stanford both had new Nobel Laureates this year."
One has to be a devout communist to get a Nobel Prize.
What a load of commie bull
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