BIDEN NEEDS TO END THE WOULD-BE "NEW CONFEDERACY" - NOW!

When the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that separate schools for whites and blacks were unconstitutional and inherently unequal, the slow and frequently violent dismantling of segregation in schools began in the South.

Following the original decision in Brown v Board of Education, which stated that schools must be desegregated without setting any timeline for the accomplishment of this goal, in 1955, the court demanded that integration happen “with all deliberate speed.”

The school board of Little Rock, Arkansas, voted to desegregate their high schools starting in 1957. Arkansas had already integrated several state universities and smaller school districts. But when nine black students decided to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock that fall - which would desegregate a large urban district - threats of violence and protests erupted.

On September 2, 1957 - only days before the school year started - Arkansas Governor of Arkansas Orval Faubus, a segregationist, announced he was ordering the Arkansas National Guard to surround Little Rock’s Central High to prevent the black students from entering the building, saying he was doing so to “protect them from mob violence.”

On September 3. Federal Judge Ronald Davies issued a ruling mandating that integrated classes would proceed as the court had ordered.

On September 4, the black students - known in history ever after as the Little Rock Nine - faced a vicious throng of whites gathered outside the school. They were denied entry by armed troops in the Arkansas National Guard. The images of African American students being screamed at, heckled and spat on, made national and international news.

The intense stand-off continued over several weeks in defiance of Judge Davies’s ruling.

Governor Faubus visited President Eisenhower at his retreat in Newport, Rhode Island, to discuss a solution. While Eisenhower believed in adhering to the Constitution, he wasn’t outwardly passionate about civil rights and hadn’t spoken in support of the Brown ruling.

Eisenhower and Faubus agreed the Arkansas National Guard would remain at the school to maintain order, so the black students could attend classes.

However, when Faubus returned to Arkansas, he removed the National Guard and left security to the local police. When the Little Rock Nine attamptd to enter the school on September 23, they had to use a side entrance, since a belligerent mob of 1,000 whites had formed at the entrance. When the inevitable riot broke out, the police evacuated the black students for their safety. Woodrow Mann, mayor of Little Rock, called on Eisenhower to intervene.

The news incensed Eisenhower, who was concerned the riots compromised the credibility of the United States as a leader of democracy and a nation of laws during the Cold War. On September 23, he issued Executive Order 10730, placing the Arkansas National Guard under federal authority, and sent 1,000 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division to maintain order as Central High School desegregated.

In an address to the nation that night, President Eisenhower stated, “Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our nation. Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of the courts.” The decision was political - to maintain the supremacy of federal laws - and to ensure that the court decisions were enforced.

On September 25, the Little Rock Nine attended Central High for their first full day of classes, under the protection of the newly federalized Arkansas National Guard and the 101st Airborne. The paratroopers steadily withdrew as a dwindling number of federalized National Guard troops took full control of security by December, 1957. From then until the end of the school year in May 1958, the federalized Arkansas National Guard patrolled the school. The Little Rock Nine were regularly subjected to physical assaults, threats and slurs.

At the beginning of the next school year in September 1958, Governor Faubus closed down all Little Rock high schools for the year, to prevent black students from enrolling. In August 1959, Little Rock high schools reopened, integrated after a federal court struck down the governor’s school-closing law. Faubus’ attempt to recreate 1861 had failed.

In 1961, John F. Kennedy took office as president. His narrow electoral victory and small working margin in Congress resulted in the president adopting a policy of cautious dealing with civil rights issues, since he was reluctant to lose southern support for legislation on many fronts by pushing too hard on civil rights legislation; this was the era of the “Solid South,” and every important congressional committee was chaired in both House and Senate by a Southern Democrat dedicated to maintaining Jim Crow.

Instead, Kennedy appointed African Americans to high-level positions in the administration and strengthened the Civil Rights Commission. He spoke in favor of desegregation, praised cities for integrating their schools, and put VP Lyndon Johnson in charge of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. Attorney General Robert Kennedy initiated five times the number of suits over voting access brought during the Eisenhower administration.

In 1962, James H. Meredith Jr., an African American Air Force veteran, applied for admission to the all-white University of Mississippi, attempting to register four times without success. The president held several long telephone conversations himself, Attorny General Robert Kennedy, and Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, which failed to resolve the situation.

When federal marshals accompanied Meredith to campus in September 1962 in another attempt to register for classes, white protesters created a riot on the camput in which two people were killed and dozens were injured.

President Kennedy federalized the Mississippi National Guard and sent paratroops from the 82nd Airborne to the campus. Meredith successfully registered as a student the next day and attended his first class. This was the first step in ending segregation at the University of Mississippi.

At his inauguration as governor of Alabama in January 1963, George Wallace vowed to defend "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever." In June 1963, he acted on his promise to "stand in the schoolhouse door" to prevent two Black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama.

To protect the students and secure their admission, President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard.

On the evening of June 11, 1963 he addressed the nation in a speech that defined the civil rights crisis as moral, as well as constitutional and legal. He announced that major civil rights legislation would be submitted to the Congress to guarantee equal access to public facilities, to end segregation in education, and to provide federal protection of the right to vote.

A few hours later, Medgar Evers, the best-known civil rights activist in Mississippi and a field officer in the NAACP, was assassinated in the driveway outside his home by Byron de la Beckwith, a KKK member, who lay in wait for Evers’ return home.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed with new President Lyndon Johnson’s knowledge of how to work the Congress, following Kennedy’s assassination.

My point in relating these three events is to demonstrate that when one of these unreconstructed Southern morons tries to revive his dreams of Dixie über alles, prompt presidential employment of Federal Authority - regardless of public sentiment on the specific event - always results in the cracker redneck being forced to back down. There is no argument these traitors can make against the lawful use of federal power to put down insurrectionary state action.

It’s no different with the crisis of attempted insurrection now happening in Texas. The traitor justices of the Supreme Court Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh may think differently, but there are at least two of the Republican traitors on the court who still recognize legal reality, to vote with the three Democratic patriots.

President Biden can end Greg Abbott’s attempt to recreate the firing on Fort Sumter and the start of Civil War II by federalizing the Texas National Guard troops Abbott has illegally sent to the southern border. Once the Texas Guard - and any others - have been federalized, they can be ordered to take down the razor wire Abbott put up on the Rio Grande, and to take down the barriers around the park the governor ordered erected. The Guard troops are duty-bound to follow such an order. President Biden should also send Regular Army troops - it would be symbolic if they came from the 101st Airborne. Their duty would be to direct the Guard troops in carrying out the presidential orders.

If any of the other 25 Republican traitors in the state houses attempt to send any of their National Guards to join in the insurrection, Biden can federalize them, too. His justification for so doing is to insure that federal laws and federal court decisions are enforced in situations where “legal anarchy” prevails. That action is entirely within his authority as President of the United States, and is supported by both the Constitution and every Supreme Court decision on the topic since George Washington dealt with the Whiskey Rebellion.

Once that work has been accomplished, the troops can be ordered to return to their barracks, where they are to “stand by for further orders,” thus maintaining their federalized condition.

The Republican governors can scream and yell all they want, they will accomplish nothing. The same is true for the Leading Traitor, Trump.

And if any of the federalized Guard troops care to try and recreate a new Confederal Army, they can be arrested for Failure to Obey a Direct Order, and then court-martialed by the Army. A sentence of imprisonment in Fort Leavenworth Army Disciplinary Barracks for ten years, reduction in rank to E-1 and loss of all pay and benefits, followed by a Dishonorable Discharge (which will wreck the rest of their lives), would be appropriate in the situation.

It would also be appropriate encouragement to the rest of the Seething Inadequates to reconsider their actions.

Whatever President Biden decides, he cannot allow the situation in Texas to continue. That would encourage the very civil war he wants to avoid. The insurgents need to be stepped on, hard and fast. As should have been done to the Bundy rebellion - which is a good demonstration of what happens when federal laws are not enforced.

Today’s would-be “New Confederacy” needs a damn good stomping.

Immediately.

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