“We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the US public believes is false.“   ~  William J. Casey, 1981  
   
   
   
 "Fatti Maschii-Parole Femine?"  
   
 Which, when loosely translated from the original italian proverb, is: Manly deeds~Womanly Words.    
   
 It is the current and perrenial (since the early years of the 16th century) state motto of Maryland.  A few years ago, a group of local 3rd wave feminists got their collective noses bent out of shape and created a short-lived brouhaha about the presence of this motto on the state flag and seal of the State of Maryland and demanded that it be removed from any and all of the official symbols of Maryland claiming that it was "sexist," and that it “belongs to a misogynistic and politically highly incorrect tradition.”  
   
 To all of which I offer a hale and hearty, 'Toughski Shitski!", which, when translated from the original Polish is: 'Tough Shit!'  
   
 Turns out that the seal of Maryland is a shameless copy of the coat of arms of the Calvert family, specifically George Calvert, the First Lord Baltimore who was instrumental in the founding of Maryland---way back when both men and women wore shoes and hats with buckles on them. The whole affair amounted to nothing more that another pointless exercise in historical revision in the guise of correcting a non-existent, imaginary historical wrong and an idiotic attempt to rail against a meaningless target.  
   
 I see much of the same misplaced fervor happening in the current, ongoing attempt of various southern politicians to distance themselves from the "Stars and Bars" Confederate flag.  This particular brouhaha stems from the historical revision that the Civil War was caused and conducted around the issue of slavery, i.e., "the noble, virtuous industrial Union states fought to end slavery , while the lowdown, dastardly, agricultural Southern slaveowners fought for it to continue."  The revisionists go on to assert that the flag is a symbol that represents an endorsement of slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK and the status of blacks as second-class citizens suffered during the racist system, and that the continued existence of the flag is an insult to all the living decendants of  souther slaves.  
   
 Like many of the products of historical revision, nothing could be further from the truth.  
   
 The causes surrounding sucession and the American Civil War were issues of state's rights, trade tariffs, nullification of unjust Federal Law and Abraham Lincoln's peculiar view of the southern states as a dependant satrapy, inferior to the values and interests of the northern states.  "Southerners argued that the federal government was strictly limited and could not abridge the rights of states as reserved in the Tenth Amendment." (wikipedia)  Conversely, neither the abolition of slavery nor the granting of the voting franchise to blacks were the goals of the northern states at the war's beginning.  
   
 Currently, the Stars and Bars are integral to the Flags of Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi.  Controversy is perennial between the two sides surrounding the issue: on the one side it is claimed as a proud symbol of Southern heritage while on the other side it is portrayed as a symbol of the KKK and slavery.  I've noticed that sleazy politicians tend to seize on the idea that it is a hideous  symbol of repression as a bit of theater in pursuit of a cause celebre'.  They wear their unction and disgust toward the flag as proof of their liberal "street cred" while they continue to do absolutely nothing that would actually improve the lives of their black constituents.  
   
 Getting back to Maryland for a moment, I would point out that the official state song of Maryland (Maryland my Maryland-sung to the tune of an old German Christmans song "Oh Tannenbaum, Mein Tannenbaum") calls President Abraham Lincoln a “despot” and a “tyrant,” and the Union forces “Northern scum.”  Old traditions can be embarrasing and sometimes need to either be changed or, at least tolerated with a smile.