I've been thinking on all the current NCAA mess and our seeming inability or unwillingness to fight back.  At the same time State 'Kollage' groups seem  to be full frontal assault mode against us..... 

We should have thrown the NCAA off campus after the first year but we elected for 'exemplary cooperation' instead of fighting like we have a backbone and that our very existence depended on it.   IMO 'exemplary cooperation' is nothing more than a form of BOHICA.  The prevailing logic seems to be that we don't want to piss them off because we can't fight city hall.  But it has been my experience that you had BETTER fight city hall or else be prepared to accept whatever they want to dish out because once you signal that you are unwilling to defend yourself you elicit the inner bully in the bureaucrats and they revel in thumping their chest and showing how tough they are just as any bully does......again BOHICA.

As much as I detest State I have to hand it to them in that they circle the wagons and fight together.  When the ban on cowbells occurred they simply refused to stop and in fact, if anything, even more of those damn things appeared.  They went to war with the rest of the conference and are still ringing those obnoxious things to this day.  We would have caved and thrown our own under the bus in order to curry favor.

There just doesn't seem any fight in us but that's not all that surprising.

Some of us tried to warn that when you lose your willingness to fight for what is yours, in the way of identity, then it comes as no surprise there is just no fight to be had for anything else either.  In days of old when a king conquered another country he would cart off the inhabitants and import outsiders.  By doing so he watered down any will to fight to defend the nation normally found where an allegiance to an national identity once existed.  In other words you'll defend your home but are less willing to fight for something that you have no emotional involvement with.  That bled the fight out of the conquered country due to the lack of indigenous people who held a fondness for the culture/nation.

We stood by and watched one symbol after another removed and with each removal a little more of our identity or 'spirit' went with it.....  To me it no longer seems like Ole Miss...we've been beaten/watered down to accept whatever others decide our fate to be.  We have bent over willingly and gotten rid of the things that made us unique.  I don't know many who are willing to fight for 'generic'.....why bother when you struggle to identify with it any longer?

So when the NCAA rolls into town, predictably, the wimps in charge rolled over and became passive.  They have become so accustomed to giving in to the demands of the attackers that the natural impulse for them is to genuflect and accept whatever the attacker demands (insert appeasement) instead of fighting back.  

The "Rebels" of the Ole Miss that I knew in the past would have resisted but the slow but steady drip, drip, drip and erosion of our 'identity'/history has taken a morbid toll on our willingness to defend ourselves......  We simply have no fight left in us.  Many like me have simply lost faith and have stopped trying to fight back as our views are usually discounted and belittled so you withdraw emotionally and for many physically....and with that withdrawal goes the willingness to fight because the former emotional tie is in 'idle' mode.  Who, as I said, wants to fight for 'generic?'

The same submission is in play with the 'war' that state has declared on us.... They ATTACK and we retreat.....and that comes from, IMO, our 'repurposing' everything Ole Miss....We have become another Generic U.....people are so tired of the constant attack on our 'personality' that there is no fight left.....  

It seems we have adopted a philosophy of the kings of old....if we ignore the 'peasants' because they're just not on our level that they will just go away.....ever heard of pitchforks and torches?  We have ignored States' orchestrations to unite at our own peril.  State is united and so it's easy for them to turn their collective focus toward who they see as the enemy.....US.  Yet we refuse to fight fire with fire.  We seem to think acknowledging them is beneath us and that arrogance has contributed to our blind spot as to the danger they pose.

The only thing we seem to 'fight' are our symbols......and anyone who supports them....  Instead of fighting our opponents our chancellor is running around changing plaques trying to appease a group that is NEVER going to be satisfied.  He appears, IMO, to be dividing us.  It's just my opinion but when one side is forced to make all the moves toward compromise through concessions of what they hold dear then there is no compromise and it generates resentment and that leads to disunity.  A disunified people haven't the heart to fight anything else.

The 'fighters' have, for the most part, withdrawn to the sidelines refusing to stand in the breech only to be kicked in the teeth by an administration hell bent on re-writing our history with a makeover that is so vanilla that it without taste.  That clears the table for the 'appeasenicks' to cave to every demand that comes down the pike since they don't have to be embarrassed by anyone with a backbone who might dare stand in the breech.

But unfortunately this is not unique to Ole Miss.  The same mindset that has attacked our symbols is now at work across the nation.  Today I saw articles (see links below) suggesting that Mount Rushmore needs to go because Borglund was a KKK member....and anything he touched must be eviscerated.  I also saw where there are movements to remove statues of Teddy Roosevelt and George Washington .  This, IMO, amounts to the elimination of national cultural treasures on the alter of what I think of as Marxism because one of the first things Marxists do when they take over a country is to eliminate anything tied to cultural/national pride.  Certainly ISIS uses the same tactics of eliminating cultural landmarks that offend them...I see very little difference.  Once you descend into mob rule, which is what happened yesterday in North Carolina, you had better put a stop to it because that is nothing more than anarchy. Get a mob together and go attack anything that offends you...that is the breakdown of society.

I think the people of OM have been more than willing to compromise....but at some point the other 'side' needs to realize that if 1 side is always the loser or making all the concessions and they are never allowed to have a win or retain things revered and close to their heart then there are no winners.  All that is going to occur is more resentment and deeper division.

At what point does this stop?  What will 'they' demand next?  That goes for the OM and the nation.  

In short.....we're divided much like the nation.   A house divided cannot stand.