Cowan_BmoreRebellion2017

Letter from the New Confederacy (HQ’d in Baltimore)

Baltimore has experienced an escalation in dangerous anti-American rhetoric post-election. President Trump’s whirlwind first days have set the Baltimore Rebels’ hair on fire. If Baltimore continues to move against the new President, then what is their next logical step? Is that the smell of secession in the air, or have the fumes from the BRESCO incinerator shifted? The biggest victim of Baltimore’s anti-Trump, secession-style rhetoric: Baltimore.

Doomsday prophesizing is in full swing in Baltimore City since President Trump’s election and subsequent inauguration. From the perch of my front porch in Pigtown, the street view of Baltimore has not changed. Shootings are still up; drugs and poverty are rampant. I see the same prostitutes on Washington Boulevard and Patapsco Avenue as I did before the election with perhaps a couple additions. Baltimore Street Life continues to sputter and backfire along. However, amid the social media feeds of Baltimore’s liberal extremists and in the local media, full-on Armageddon has begun. What a contrast!

Since I began calling Baltimore my home, I have noticed the self-licking ice cream cone of Baltimore Politics. The rhetoric of local politicians and pundits was dramatic, full of hypocrisy and hyperbole, but largely slow-moving and benign until now.

My head spins in confusion from the new calls of “resistance.” It seems the members of Baltimore Sun Editorial Board are in a daily contest to upstage each other as each new editorial is much more extreme than the last. Local politicians are hosting large forums to teach residents how to “organize” and “fight back” against a new American government. The Protest is very much en vogue (see the Pratt St/Hopkins Pl. protest and the BWI protest last weekend). Baltimore media buzz is so chock-full of stupidity that – for the first time ever – I can’t keep up with the ridiculous rants and pronouncements.

Trending: President Trump Must Be Reelected

Mostly, all of this is annoying, but something about it is viscerally disturbing.

On 13 January 2017, I attended an event in the Highlandtown area in Baltimore. The event was titled, “Organizing at the Local Level” and featured a discussion panel of local Democratic politicians. Leaders from Casa de Maryland and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center of Baltimore (GLCCB) were also in attendance. The event was well attended and was also broadcast live on Facebook. Due to the high population of immigrants in Highlandtown, the event included Spanish translations of some of the commentary.

From what I could gather, the purpose of the event was to link citizens who may be afraid of the Trump agenda to groups in the community that the event organizers thought could be of help to them. The forum largely consisted of fear-mongering and hate peddling. Honestly, the vitriol that spewed from some of the politicians’ mouths was quite impressive. I’m not sure if I had ever heard anything that extreme in Baltimore up to that point. There was hand-wringing, rounds of applause for the “diversity in attendance,” and pizza.

When City Councilman Brandon Scott (Baltimore’s 2nd City Council District) said to the large group of event participants that they needed to organize quickly because “the evil train is coming down the line,” I almost let out an inappropriate giggle. I wanted to giggle in amusement. Who knew a Baltimore Councilman could be so daft? But, then a strange fear began to creep slowly into my mind. When Elizabeth Alex, employed with Casa de Maryland, spoke of the creation of a “sanctuary network”, she called the audience to urge their local worship centers to participate. I stopped giggling. The worship centers would serve as illegal immigrant protection centers and attempt to fight back against the “deportation squads.” The situation was more dire than I thought. Up until that point, I had not heard local politicians and radicals actually imply a need for physical resistance to elements of the US Government.

I realized that the “organizing” discussed at the event was very different than my definition of “organizing.” I realized that, in the minds of some radical Baltimoreans, the Trump Administration is (incorrectly) seen as an existential threat. They are using scare tactics to rally more moderate members of Baltimore City into a frenzy. It is irresponsible for local politicians to lead their constituents into such an irrational state of fear, then encourage them to “fight back.”

The 13 January “organizing event,” the anti-Trump City Council Resolution I spoke out against in December, and the more recent protests in Downtown Baltimore and BWI Airport all call to mind the rhetoric of southern US states in the height of pre-Civil War secession.

Take this passage from the Alabama Ordinance of Secession (11 January 1861):

Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln Donald Trump and Hannibal Hamlin Mike Pence to the offices of President and Vice-President of the United States of America by a sectional party avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the State of Alabama City of Baltimore, following upon the heels of many and dangerous infractions of the Constitution of the United States … is a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character as to justify the people of the State of Alabama City of Baltimore in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security.

The above passage is not very far off from what the #NotMyPresident fanatics and media throughout Baltimore are saying as I write this. In fact, it is nearly identical to the new Baltimore City Council’s first resolution of their term.

I do not share the same attitude as Confederate General Robert E. Lee had with regard to his home (“If Virginia goes, then I go”). In the (hopefully) unlikely event that Baltimore were to secede, I would not take up arms against the US Government despite the encouragement of local politicians and left-leaning groups. I can’t imagine a scenario in which I would take up arms against (ie “resist” or “fight back”) against the country I once raised my right-hand and swore that I would give my life for.

Luckily, my neighbors feel the same. In Pigtown, my neighbors also giggle at the hysterics of the Baltimore Rebellion and we lament all of this anti-Trump braggadocio and posturing because it shifts the focus away from Baltimore’s real problems at hand.

Last Sunday night, as Left-wing protestors “organized” at BWI against perceived injustices to immigrants who have not yet arrived in the United States,

Will the Baltimore Rebels put down their arms against President Trump and work on combating the existential threats to the residents in their own neighborhoods?

Baltimore deserves better; let the Rebels know.



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