Heh heh heh. CalExit Secession Movement Dies the Way It Lived: Stupidly. Excerpt:
One notably bizarre, disorganized push to turn California into its own country is dead—at least for now. Its leader, Louis J. Marinelli, announced that he is canceling the petition and pulling up stakes. While he said he believed in the struggle for California’s independence “from the United States so we could build the kind of country that reflects our progressive values,” he has decided on a new path.
He’s decided he’d rather live in Russia, which is not exactly famous for its progressiveness.
In a missive released yesterday afternoon he said that life in Russia would offer him “a future detached from the partisan divisions and animosity that has thus far engulfed [his] entire life.” Yes, one imagines it is true that he’s going to face much less partisan divisiveness in Russia given how frequently very bad things happen to those who oppose the status quo there.
If by “very bad things” you mean “a bullet to the back of the head,” or (if the secret police are being generous) “lifetime exile to Siberia, where you’ll have to spend ten minutes chipping through the ice in the toilet before you can poop,” then, yes. Moving on:
Almost immediately after CalExit began getting real press coverage did the fact that organizer Marinelli was actually living in Russia, not America, also start getting attention. That news raised the specter that this was all another potential attempt to sow chaos by Russian government operatives. Another leader (who also resigned this week) told the Sacramento Bee that possible donors started backing out once Marinelli’s background came to light, fearing that the secession movement would be tied to Vladimir Putin.
Schadenfreude. Eh heh heh heh.
The whole CalExit thing was a stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid plan to begin with. It was a comedy of ignorance and economic illiteracy; if the “movement” from Moskva had been successful, CA would have proceeded to print money and deficit spend its way into Venezuela status in a matter of months.
Some stories have sad endings; some have happy endings. The ending to this story will have me chuckling for the rest of the day.
