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[RainDog]

This message was self-deleted by its author (RainDog) on Thu Jan 19, 2012, 01:29 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[47of74]

1. How would they hold public office if shot?

Just asking.

[RainDog]

3. that was the part I was saying in frustration :)

[just1voice]

2. Great questions, I ask myself the same things

A boundary was actually drawn in 1820, the 36-30 line, as part of the Missouri Compromise that to this day is still where such a boundary would be drawn to divide the North and the South. Back then there were also 2 very clear schools of thought: the people who thought the South was an evil regime that should be burned to the ground and the people who wanted to work with the South instead and create a better union. The result was a war in which at least 600,000 people died and portions of the South were actually burned to the ground.

The problems from that time period that continue today are mostly what occurred after the Civil War, the revisionist history, the corruption and the denial. A great article on it was just published -- http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/153598/why_the_white_south_is_still_in_denial_about_slavery/.

You are absolutely correct, the U.S. would be a much better country without the states below 36-30 but the big problem with that is there are millions of democrats in the South too, the South isn't just made up of the corrupt politicians that steal elections there. The demographics are much different today than they were 150 years ago and the politics of the South now shift frequently, often times to the left.

What the U.S. really needs is to address corruption everywhere, including but certainly not limited to the South.

[RainDog]

6. I know there are lots of democrats in the south

I'm from the south, so it's not like I'm saying this as some outsider to the region.

That's why I said that immigration would be an issue - or people could choose to live within those states if they wanted to live under that sort of govt.

Maybe Utah would become its own entity too.

I think it would be interesting to have a ballot and to require all people of voting age to cast a vote in the state in which they live to decide which sort of govt. they would like to have for their state.

[unc70]

73. And what of the northern slave traders?

The slave trade was in New England. Became the old money capitalist.

Free people of color were citizens in NC, could vote until 1835. Could own slaved until 1860.

Check my journal archives.

And quit bashing the South.

[Fawke Em]

115. Why should I have to immigrate?

Many of us Southern Democrats stay here because we like the area - little snow, lots of lakes, pretty scenery - not because of our idiot governments.

[RainDog]

117. you don't have to

you also don't have to worry about anything I wrote in the OP ever happening, or any comment I posted here.

whoever wants to be outraged by my post is welcome to be so. (not referring to you, but if you are, okay.)

In my outrage over the S.C. republican convention and Newt's appeal to the racists in the republican party, I wrote this post to express my frustration.

it's not prescriptive. it will never happen.

of course the south is WONDERFUL and we're all one big happy family and...silly me for mouthing off in a moment of frustration.

[MicaelS]

122. You can take your regional bigotry against the South and leave anytime

You clearly don't like the system of government that the US exists under:

You don't like the Electoral College,
You don't like the 10th Amendment,
I bet you don't like the US Senate, or the 2nd Amendment.

Rather than the system change to meet your expectations, or expelling a whole region of the country, you, and people who believe as you do, should be the one to secede by immigrating. If you really wanted to you could find a way. Plenty of people leave countries and system for other countries all the time.

If you can't handle the criticism, then don't make bigoted posts against a whole region of the US the next time you get frustrated.

[RainDog]

125. thanks for your concern

I can handle the criticism just fine.

I'm glad you didn't go whole hog with the love it or leave it bullshit.

here's some interesting information for you, tho. check out these stats. they're not bigoted. they're information.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002185204

[WCGreen]

31. Those people who are stealing elections from the democrats

had parents and grandparents who were democrats who stole elections so that the black folk couldn't get a vote...

Curious, when LBJ signed the Equal Rights Legistlation he quiped that I just handed the South to the Republicans for the next generations.

And he was right.

Wallace ran against Nixon and Humphrey in '68 with Nixon running on a Law and Order platform that was a pretty blatant racial campiagn. You must remember that there were hundreds of riots in cities across the country in the hot summer of '68.

It's all gets flushed out now.

[msongs]

38. what about ""those democrats" who are allowing elections to be stolen by doing 0 about that? nt

[Luminous Animal]

63. Thank you for the link! It is a great article.

[MicaelS]

4. "Honest majority opinions"

Who gets to define "honest"?
Is that an opinion YOU agree with?
And what if the majority opinion is dishonest? What then?
Just because the majority wants something, it should be done?
Is that your definition of "real" Democracy?
Because that is mob rule.

The founders were all students of Rome, and the Fall of Rome, and understood the power of pandering to the mob. That's why they wrote our system of government like they did. Otherwise just a few populous cities would dominate the political life of this country. We fought a revolution, one of the causes being taxation without representation, and now you want to bring that back?

[white_wolf]

8. Simply because the Founders disapproved of something doesn't make it wrong.

Several of them approved of slavery, that doesn't make it right. We do need more democracy, I'm far more worried about corporate rule than I am mob rule. There should be mechanism to protect certain rights from the majority rule, but overall, I feel that the more direct power given to the people the better. You can attack the people as a "mob" all you want. The fact remains that from its very beginning this nation has often been a "democratic republic" in name only, and has all too often been an oligarchy ruled by a small minority.

[RainDog]

11. honest is what polls indicate are the opinions of the American people.

honest is what research indicates when they ask people what their preference is for wealth distribution, as Dan Ariely did, without putting any labels on the idea that cause knee-jerk reactions.

in Ariely's research, he found that the majority of Americans preferred a swedish-style income distribution, which means high taxes on wealth over a certain amt.

I'm not talking about no representation - minority rights do need to be protected - and THEY AREN'T under the current system, in many, many ways. Just ask the GBLT community. Just ask people in schools in low-income areas how current ways of doing things are done to create a permanent underclass - regardless of race, but racism plays a large part in the lack of representation for the well being of the poor, for instance.

We have a mob rule - it's just more like a mafia of the monied.

We certainly do not have representative democracy in this nation on issue after issue.

Universal health care, for instance. Social safety net protections for the ill, the infirm, the elderly, the abused.

If you think Rome fell by pandering to the mob - you have no idea what you're talking about. Rome fell b/c they ceased to be a Republic and became a dictatorship and the rich didn't care as long as they could do whatever they wanted and fuck everyone else.

The revolution was fought b/c the king favored one CORPORATION that benefited him, not the people living here. That was the taxation w/o representation - what the fuck does that have to do with the idea that we currently do not have representation for the way in which people want our govt to work here?

You do not seem to understand what I'm saying - I'm saying our current govt does not represent and protect the majority of people in this nation - that's not mob rule - that's saying small groups have undue power and influence.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

5. gawdamn yeehaw

[Cleita]

7. Sometimes it seems it wasn't. However, thinking about it,

if we had let the South secede we would have been co-existing with a hostile nation next to us, kind of like Iraq and Iran. We would have refugee camps on our borders filled with runaway slaves that white people probably wouldn't want to live next door to and any other variety of problems because we didn't fix THE PROBLEM.

[white_wolf]

9. Not to mention all the sane white people stuck in the South.

Hell, I can barely stand to live here now. If it was it's own country I couldn't stand it. I don't trust these fools to run a race, let alone a government.

[RainDog]

13. people could move

and would move.

those currently living in other states could help - that's basically what West Germany did when East Germany moved away from the Soviet bloc - in a different direction of unification - but the west helped the east to get out from under that system.

[RainDog]

18. not all whites are racists

I like living in a mixed-race neighborhood...not just black and white, btw... also Asian, homosexual, middle-eastern... I wouldn't want to live in a tighty whitey suburb.

And that time is past - now people could choose to live under one system or another.

It's not like I think this is going to happen, but what we have going on at this time isn't working for a lot of people.

We have economic slavery now - the new slave masters are on Wall Street rather than plantations and they get a govt that makes laws that favor them and dispossess the rest of us.

[Cleita]

46. I know that but look at history.

Forty years ago before MLK and his civil rights marches, even whites who had no problem with minorities socially or in the work place, didn't want them moving into their neighborhoods because they thought it would drive down property prices. Real Estate brokers actually made this happen with the practice of red-lining. I myself preferred mixed-race neighborhoods when I lived in LA. However, it wasn't until the sixties that the push to desegregate neighborhoods began in earnest.

[RainDog]

53. True

and busing in the south to integrate schools created the church schools that want funding now from the govt as "charters." The growth of mega-churches in the south corresponds to this attempt of some whites to segregate themselves.

Those mega-churches are also where the religious right has issued their theocratic manifestos in the past few years, as well.

Personally, I think that racism, these days, is tied to economic issues - ala Gringrich trying to insinuate that Af-Ams are this or that when more whites are on welfare than blacks - so, just as Andrew Johnson found back in his day - if he wanted to try to make himself "powerful" in his eyes, even in the face of great poverty - he saw himself as different than Af-Ams - even tho he shared more economic interests in common with those who had been systemically persecuted b/c of the color of their skin.

This still goes on.

[Cleita]

55. Speaking of welfare. Newtie, the toadman, said Barak Obama has issued more food stamps than

any other President.

Hey Newtie, honey, this is for you! If food stamps were stopped tomorrow, you might want to watch your stock crash in supermarket corporations, transportation, and food commodities, cuz starving people don't have money to buy food. All that food that is produced, transported and stocked in supermarket shelves won't get sold to poor, starving people and it really will stagnate the market.

I mean you and all your fellow parasitic Republicans keep preaching how everything should be run like a business and everyone should have a job and yet you will destroy one of the means of keeping the free markets ball rolling and people employed.

[RainDog]

60. such a statement also ignores Paulson's bank bail out

the reason the economy has been in such terrible shape is b/c of the bankers - so blame those who have suffered - and it's not just those who had mortgages - states have cut funds for libraries, teachers, etc. etc.

In addition, wages have not kept pace with inflation for at least three decades. If people are not paid enough to survive, I guess they're just supposed to FOAD, in the republican version of America.

[emilyg]

27. So you think all

whites are racists?

[Cleita]

51. All? That's a pretty broad brush.

However, I think more white people are racist than I used to think so. It's the only way I can explain the popularity of media figures like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly etc.. The only way they get away with their spew is that they appeal to the racism, not to mention homophobia and misogynism inside all those white people who think they are wonderful. If they weren't racist, they would recognize the idiocy of the arguments and opinions they express. I have been aghast at how many people think those bozos are wonderful. Up until the rise of the great fat ass Limbaugh, I really thought that racists had become a small and detested minority in this country. I was wrong.

[Zalatix]

10. After the blacks were freed we should have let the South go.

We've been paying a dear price for not doing so, ever since.

[white_wolf]

12. You would have a lot of immigrants coming from the South, then.

I do think the U.S. would have done better without the South, but a lot of good people live here and would likely flood the north trying to get out.

[unc70]

75. But those blacks could not buy property in many places

Deed restrictions up until the 1960's preve
Ted blacks, Jews, non-Protstants,... from whole towns int North.

[Cleita]

52. They would have just reinstated slavery and

brought in a whole new bunch of them. Today they probably would be buying them from Asia and the ME.

[JDPriestly]

14. I was wondering that last night.

The S. Carolina Republican debates made me rethink the entire Civil War and begin to wonder whether Lincoln really made the right decision when he sacrificed so many lives to keep the South in the Union.

The slaves could have escaped to the North and left the bigots in the South to swelter in the humidity and heat in the fields.

[mucifer]

20. If President Lincoln had survived after the civil war I think we might have

a different country. President andrew johnson was horrible.

[JDPriestly]

111. Good Point!

[RainDog]

21. Yes. That's what prompted this post

That and the constant bills brought up in various states that want creationism in science classes and xtian prayers (only) in schools and people spitting on the infirm during the tea party rallies...

A lot of those states that now have to put up with this religious right b.s. were parts of the Union - so those folks who want a theocracy would have to leave those states and go where they can have one religion and exclude others.

[Hugabear]

69. You mean Confederate states like Indiana and New Hampshire?

Both of these states have recently introduced creationism legislation.

This type of stuff ain't limited to the South, but feel free to go ahead and ignore this fact in your anti-South tirade

[RainDog]

72. yeah. If you read my OP, I note this isn't about a specific region

because various places have done and are doing just what you said.

and I noted that those states that would be put in the "jesusland" map don't fit that description either.

but please note the voting patterns of the south in my post #67 and the reality is that the pattern exists in the south for voting based upon an anti-civil rights bias.

The OP actually goes through a sort of frustration list - but people are concentrating on the subject header b/c that's what gets to the issue of the change in southern voting patterns since the passage of the civil rights act.

Religious nutters are all over the place, most definitely.

[Hugabear]

74. Seemed pretty specific to me

Most of your OP - and the vast majority of your followup responses - seem to focus on the South. Hell, even the way you phrase your OP title sets up the thread as another "North vs South" debate.

We know the South ain't perfect. Yes, there's plenty of racism down here. But this isn't isolated to just the South - hell, racism is very much alive and kicking in the North as well, to deny that would be a lie. But we also have plenty of good honest progressives down here in the South, and we don't appreciate much being lumped in with all of the assholes.

[RainDog]

76. since I've repeatedly said the post was in frustration b/c of the S.C. deal with Gringrich

I would assume that people might not take it personally and look at the group in the south that is the source of my frustration.

And, again, since I was born and raised in the south, it's not like I don't know there are southern progressives.

I focused on the south b/c so many people are angry b/c I mentioned the voting patterns of the south.

See, I really think a big problem is the electoral college - that's what someone got so mad at me about when I said "honest majority."

I hate that people don't get to vote for the prez by popular vote b/c it's not fair, imo, to force people who live in one state or another to lose their vote b/c of their neighbor.

I think that, if we had direct popular vote for president, we'd have more voter turnout too. A lot of folks wonder why they should bother to vote if their vote won't even count - so you'd get more turnout for local/state pols by having a popular vote.

[FarCenter]

15. It would have been better to have won the War of 1812 and lost the Civil War

The Union states plus Canada would make a better nation.

[lunatica]

17. Look at post #16. The US of Canada and Jesusland

[RainDog]

24. Maybe the red states in the west/midwest should be returned to various Native Americans

because, just as slavery created an underclass, removing Native Americans from their lands did too.

But there should be some provision and since the red west/midwest is not very densely populated, these areas could be designated as some sort of compensation, even if not exactly fair, for past expansionism that decimated so many who were here before settlers.

[lunatica]

16. Then there's this map of how the US could look.

[RainDog]

23. I don't think that's representative

because so few people vote.

Colorado, for instance, would not be Jesusland. Neither would a lot of Northern states included.

Alaska would probably choose to go its own way.

[RainDog]

30. Here's what one former Soviet guy predicted - I don't think he's right either

...the part about the north atlantic joining the EU - lol. I don't think he's right about any of it - but this is another map from someone else, fwiw.

[RainDog]

33. Here's another version

[kurt_cagle]

112. Close, but with a few differences

New Hudson - NYC, New Jersey, Connecticut, Philadelphia, Eastern Great Lakes region
Appalachia - Runs along the northern edge of Dixie
Ubuntu (?) - May run along the southern coast of Dixie
Hawaii - Independent?

These are the geolinguistic boundaries of the US, reflecting original settlement patterns. Ecotopia is what most Northwesterners would call Cascadia. In my opinion, this represents the most likely distribution of countries by the year 2150 in North America.

In the novel I'm wrapping up (set about 2080) Dixie is called the Free Republic of America. The Islands are Caribbea, with the capital in Havana and Miami being its biggest city. I see Ubuntu being formed by former African Americans and running along the Mississippi river after a period of "ethnic cleansing" on the part of the Apartheid Whites in the eastern part of Dixie, but I'd say it's only about 40% likely that it would form as a distinct country. Mexico Norte I think is a near certainty, as is Cascadia and the FRA. New Hudson is possible - the history and politics of New York are VERY distinct from New England (which has Boston as its center), and I see the Canadian Maritimes (Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia) more likely to join with New England if Quebec becomes independent.

I also think that the FRA will attempt to capture Maryland and DC, if only because it gives this country a higher sense of legitimacy to hold the former US capital. New England, New Hudson, Quebec and Heartland may very well be a long-lived intermediate state. El Norte (Mexamerica) will extend down into Northern Mexico, and will be primarily Hispanic/Mestizo ancestry, corresponding more or less with the ancient Spanish empire. Cascadia is closest to New Hudson sensibilities, but the physical divide of the Western Confederacy and its proximity to China, Russia and Japan will make its existence a practical certainty.

I'm convinced that something like this will end up being the most stable distribution of companies. The US as it exists right now as highly unstable. I don't think it will hold its current form for more than perhaps 30-40 years on the outside.

[Nye Bevan]

50. About 80% of Canadians are Christian.

So wouldn't the orange part kind of be "Jesusland" too?

[laundry_queen]

86. Um, no

The numbers I saw on Wiki were 77% back in 2001 - so 11 years ago and down 6% from 10 years before that - and nearly half of those were Roman Catholic - which was more than all the different kinds of Protestants put together. I can tell you from experience, growing up in a french Canadian town that there are many people who are Catholic who say they are 'Christian' and none of those people currently even go to church. To them, Christian means they believe Jesus existed and they celebrate Christmas (and perhaps at one time were baptised), not that they are "CHRISTIAN" IYKWIM. They identify with being Catholic and Christian but are not currently practicing. That is pretty much everyone I know in this town. Or if they do go to church, they are FAR from devout. And I'm guessing those in "Jesusland" don't even regard Catholics as 'Christians'.

From Wikipedia "A 2005 Gallup poll showed that 28% of Canadians consider religion to be "very important" (55% of Americans and 19% of Britons say the same)" - that says more, I think, than percentage of people who identify as Christian.

[Nye Bevan]

88. 77% is "about 80%". And Catholics are, indeed, Christians (nt)

[RainDog]

108. people are not going to "get" what you're talking about

because they don't want to look at the ignorance that passes for religion in the U.S. with creationists and anti-female fundies and all that.

Belgium is also a "Catholic" country but people from Belgium who used to come to my house to visit would tape the preachers on American tv b/c they couldn't believe that this nation actually had people who validated the sort of shit you hear from fundies.

[white_wolf]

19. My personal views on this are that the North wasn't hard enough on the South.

They should have executed every high ranking southern officer who led the rebellion. The property of slave holders should have been taken and redistributed to the former slaves as compensation for their years of forced slavery. All members of the southern government should have been barred from ever holding office in the U.S. for the rest of the their lives. Now, here is where I get rather extreme. Before the Southern states were readmitted to the Union, the Constitution should have been amended to remove the 10th amendment and get rid of the structure of Federalism. It has caused us far too many problems and a unitary system would serve us better.

[RainDog]

22. They should have executed Andrew Johnson, too

And, I agree that the property of slaveholders should have been redistributed to slaves.

So, yeah, I basically agree that the south got off too easy in the aftermath of the war.

[RZM]

34. They should have executed the vice president who remained loyal?

How would that have worked?

'Sir, we appreciate you remaining loyal to the Union, but you're going to have to die anyway. Tough break, I know.'

[RainDog]

37. he was pro-slavery

and, honestly, if you look at what he did with reconstruction - we would've been better off... just saying...

he was the v.p. b/c then, as now, the president was trying to create a coalition among entirely different viewpoints. It didn't work then and it doesn't work now.

[RZM]

47. So that's your case for execution?

He was pro-slavery and was a shitty president? That's all true but it's important to bear in mind that his enemies DID try to politically execute him with the impeachment fiasco, which blew up in their faces.

There were a lot of southerners who remained loyal that were more or less pro-slavery. Form what I understand, he lent his public support to emancipation anyway, whatever his private views.

I just find it odd that people are arguing the president should have been executed for having beliefs that were widespread in the country. I don't think that's how we've ever done business here. Besides, you're also saying that he should have been executed because his plans didn't work. That may be true, but you're talking from a 2012 perspective here. Back then, it would have been hard to argue that 'he has to go because his political program isn't working well.' We don't do things like that here. I'm quite proud that no president has ever been killed in a palace coup (and if somebody says Kennedy was a place coup, I'm going to throw something

[RainDog]

56. that was my frustration and hyperbole talking

I guess impeaching him was enough.

Actually, there was one known plan for a palace coup. The business plot during the FDR administration. (I would link to wiki but it's down.) Jules Archer wrote about that history - that's excluded from our history books.

Maybe "preserving the Union" is just shorthand for talking about economic policies that favor the wealthy - and their belief that they are entitled to such favored treatment simply b/c they're rich.

I guess I tend to agree with Balzac's statement that "behind great wealth is great crime."

Yet these criminals are treated as though they're essential to the well being of this nation when they're not.

[RZM]

61. Well that's a different issue

I guess wealth distribution and the aims of the North in the Civil War probably are related, but that's not something I can comment on. FWIW, I do know that the end of slavery wiped out many billions in assets in the South.

That's actually an interesting comparison with the ending of serfdom in Eastern Europe in the 19th century. In Russia, serfs were finally emancipated in 1861. But for a variety of reasons, the landowners participated in the process and the deal ended up being quite good for them and not so good for the serfs. In the US, the southern slaveowners chose to resist and as a result, they had no say in the final settlement and ended up getting nothing. Though of course they later rebounded with sharecropping, etc.

I would encourage anybody who's interested to check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Unfree-Labor-American-Slavery-Russian/dp/0674920988/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326865456&sr=8-1

It really is a classic that compares Russian serfdom and American slavery. It's a perfect example of the value of comparative studies. You can learn a lot more in books where two systems are contrasted than in a book that focuses on just one topic.

As for the business plot and FDR, it's not something I know that much about. But I do know that it didn't succeed, so we can at least be thankful for that and the fact that we're undefeated in the palace coup department . . . there are a whole lot of other countries that can't boast that.

[RainDog]

70. some people argue the southern states issues are b/c the south

remained an agarian society while the rest of the nation underwent industrialization and developed a "worker's party" sensibility.

there's a difference b/t economic populism and the sort of 19th and early 20th c. union/worker issues that industrialized parts of the nation faced.

haven't looked at your link yet but I will.

but that idea - that the south wasn't part of the process of creating a "worker's consciousness" that most American states and European nations went through seems to tie to the Russian lag in industrialization compared to western Europe, too.

I mean, Stalin's big deal, other than killing those who disagreed with him, was industrializing Russia.

[RZM]

71. Well

Howard Zinn and other Marxists would disagree. They claim that the same tensions that the north saw were evident in the Confederacy as well. Though I'm no Zinn fan, I tend to agree that some of the same tensions were there as well as here.

As for Stalin, the five year plans and collectivization were plans for industrialization and modernization to protect the USSR from foreign enemies. But the crimes weren't just about that. They were also about national identity (the Ukrainian famine and the 'Polish Operation') as well as anti-religion, anti-intellectual, and anti-everybody who wasn't a full breed Stalinist. And even some people who were.

[RZM]

44. I'm out of my element on the Civil War, I'll admit

But seeing as the whole point of the war was to preserve the Union, I think the relatively lenient treatment the South got after the war was over was in line with the overall goals of the Northern war effort, which was to preserve what was already there, not to fundamentally alter it.

It's sort of like the Easter Rebellion in Ireland in 1916. I think it's widely acknowledged that the British execution of the ringleaders was a big mistake. It turned them into martyrs. Plenty of people who were kind of on the fence about the rebellion weren't after that. From the British point of view, there was little that was gained from that. I'll bet that had the North carried out mass executions of southern leaders, history would judge that action similarly.

[Kennah]

54. Nelson Mandela would disagree with vengeance

[William769]

25. For every action theres a reaction.

If the U.S. was not preserved we would be living in a different world today (and I'm not just speaking of the United States).

[krispos42]

26. Yes

The alternative would have been the US and the CS making a midget-sized armed camp of North America: a long border with a well-armed rival nation. European empires playing the US and the CS against each other. And the web of alliances that caused the domino effect in Europe that lead to WW1 would have gotten us involved, too.

With one part of America on the side of the Allies and the other on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, we would have had the meat-grinding battles of trench warfare here in the states. Virginia and Maryland would have become the scenes of horrific frontal assaults into machine-gun fire and chemical-weapons artillery barrages.

Furthermore, there was the risk that other states of the Confederacy or the Union would have split up, resulting in the Balkanization of the present-day United States. It was sixty years between the Civil War and WW1; plenty of time for this kind of stuff. If the US or the CS (or both) were involved in fighting civil wars as other states try to leave (for example, Texas leaving the Confederacy), this would have resulted in a more-or-less permanent war economy and authoritiarian government, including conscription, as North America was buried in plots and counter-plots to steal technology, military secrets, perform false-flag acts of terrorism, election manipulation, propaganda, etc. Not to mention border flare-ups.

You know how the Europeans were always fighting among themselves? Yeah, same thing here now, with the British on the north stirring things up and the Spanish in the south doing the same, perhaps acting through Mexico, which would be pissed after losing the Mexican-American War back in '48.

And we can't overlook the possibility of a Communist rebellion in the South at some point, either, by the slaves, which would just make the the entire CS a mess and the attendant loss of life. Purges, counter-purges, the US (or somebody) takes advantage of the situation and invades...



Ugh.

[RainDog]

45. good argument

but the south didn't win - so why do they get to decide so much about our electoral politics? -- those who hold the same view as the CSA in many ways.

[Odin2005]

68. Have you read Harry Turtledove's alternate history novels?

Many of his (excellent) novels are set in a world where the CSA won it's independence.

[krispos42]

82. Yup, and I have to admit he paints a realistic possibility

[eridani]

118. Harry Turtledove has a whole series of alternate history novels--

--based on that premise. Check 'em out.

[Prophet 451]

28. Good question

I think there's several seperate parts to this. The first is the purely political, whether the union was worth preserving as a political entity. On that one, I'm honestly not sure. The ongoing influence of a far-right based in and strongest in the old South make me wonder whether it was worth preserving.

However, there's also the question of slavery. The South seceeded over their right to keep slaves (and we know that because they downright said so). Now, while it's not as simple as saying that Lincoln went to war to free the slaves, the upshot of his decision was that the slaves were eventually freed. Personally, I think freeing teh slaves would have been a morally justifiable reason to go to war. That said, it's questionable how much longer slavery would have persisted anyway when wage slavery is so much cheaper for the plantation class. What I suspect would have happened was the gradual withering away of outright slavery in favour of wage slavery and second-class citizenship.

There's quite a good film about this called "CSA: Confederate States of America".

[RainDog]

41. I've seen that film

I absolutely agree that freeing the slaves was a good reason to go to war. I just wonder about the preserving the Union part. but there are good points made by krispos, above, about this issue.

[cthulu2016]

29. I think shooting them would have precluded their holding public office

[RainDog]

35. yeah, I already addressed this

but left the sentence as is so people could laugh.

[cthulu2016]

39. I share your frustration. Just thought it was funny.

Like the old Army enlistment questionaire: "Have you or any member of your family comited suicide?"

[RainDog]

42. agreed

I thought it was funny too - when I realized what I had written. I'm not, obviously, the Madame Defarge I might appear to be in this thread.

and, as I said, this post was out of frustration with the S.C. reaction during the Republican debate.

[Kennah]

32. Perhaps we should have done forced integration in 1865

When I was in kindergarten, my school was integrated via forced busing.

[cthulu2016]

36. We pretty much did. Then we got tired of it and left

[SaintPete]

40. So I lose my home because I live in a Confederate State?

yeah, that really works for me, thanks for the brilliant idea.

[RainDog]

43. You could continue to live there

your choice.

[Kali]

48. so, "ghettoize" the southern states and dump the west on the "Indians" ??? WTF?

because nothing bad ever came from the northeast? Maybe some of the aboriginal groups from that area would prefer you gave those lands back to them. Perhaps good, thinking and OMG - liberal people LIKE living in their southern homes and don't want to migrate to the frigid crowded northeast just for some political fantasy.

this thread is worse than joking about inbred rural cousins because the participants are fucking serious. this is region-bashing taken to a pseudo-intellectual level.

[emilyg]

58. +10

[RainDog]

59. No. I don't think you really get the point of the post

the southern states are the ones that didn't want to belong to the union - not the other way around.

[RainDog]

62. by all means protect white privilege

and don't bother to read the post which notes that this is about all geographic regions but the origin for the republican party platform and ideology today is grounded in the southern religious white voter.

if you don't like that that's a reality, I don't really care.

[JoeyT]

116. When the OP is about kicking out the states that have the majority of the black population

you might want to hold off on accusing people of white privilege. Just an FYI.





I suppose they should have just been left to fend for themselves. Same for the Native Americans.

[kurt_cagle]

132. Fascinating

Compare this to the US population density map overall.
[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ss9lSUGR43o/S7J6DXDCg7I/AAAAAAAAAAc/776g6Nr9rs4/s1600/Map+%231.gif[/img]
This would tend to imply that the White south, if it were to secede, might very well find itself confined to Appalachia (the dark band in the Density of Blacks map that stretches from Northern Alabama to Philadelphia, PA). That empirically makes sense - I've lived in AL, GA, FL, KY, TN, VA, WV, DC and MD - and in at least the urban areas the black population outnumbered the white (with negligible other ethnic groups) by a significant majority.

Politically, this raises a question, though - assuming that the primary factor in these states for white control rests in gerrymandering, are the demographics going to make this impossible by 2020? Demographics would suggest that the southern states may end up going Democratic consistently in the intermediate to long term by then.

[cordelia]

81. + billions

[Nye Bevan]

49. YES and since Washington and Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves their bodies should have been dug up

so they could be hanged or shot, and their heirs should have had all of their property confiscated.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

57. Not necessarily. But, it was worth keeping it to get rid of slavery.

[MFrohike]

64. I think of Jack Nicholson

You know that scene in A Few Good Men, where Nicholson gives his speech on the stand about a world with walls? I feel like that speech, suitably edited, is necessary at the moment. Why? This ignorant thread.

Tell you what, let's do a little historical exercise. Let's examine 20th century American history without the south.

1. No New Freedom. That means no central bank and no income tax. Southerners wrote and passed those laws. Guess they don't matter.

2. No New Deal. Again, guess who passed legislation like Glass-Steagall, the AAA, the NRA, the Public Utility Holding Company Act, the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act), Social Security, FDIC, Fannie Mae, etc.?

3. No conscript army at Pearl Harbor. A draft had been held in 1940 to conscript soldiers for one year. In August 1941, the House extended the term of enlistment for another year by one vote. Southerners voted almost unanimously in favor of the extension. That first conscript army was the basis of American power in WW2.

Incidentally, it wasn't in the south that the America Firsters were popular. You had to go a bit north to find that bunch of Nazi bootlickers.

4. No Civil Rights Act or Voting Rights Act. Those bills would not have been nearly as strong as they were, if they even got cloture, without LBJ and Richard Russell. LBJ forced them through and Russell let him.

5. No Medicare or Medicaid. That dastardly old southerner LBJ at work again. Ditto for the Great Society and its few remaining successes.

6. No EPA. Again, guess who the committee chairmen were when that one got created.

That's just a few items. True, without the south there would have been no de jure segregation, but I don't think northerners should ever feel confident to boldly criticize the south on this issue unless they've faced up to the continuing residential segregation in their own backyard. The worst riots over integration weren't in Charlotte, they were in Boston.

I could really go on and on. McCarthy got slapped down by a southern senator named Sam Ervin. MacArthur got reamed by Richard Russell in a series of committee hearings. When Sam Ervin called for the impeachment of Nixon, the writing was on the wall. I'm a bit overly focused on the federal government, but there's plenty of evidence there to undercut any ludicrous notion that a divided country was a good idea.

The Democratic Party was historically a union of the south and northern ethics, such as Irish and Italians. You had fundamentalist Protestants and Catholics in the same party. No bullshit. You had southern drys and northern wets on the same side of the aisle. No joke at all. They were bound by common economic interests. They never had much commonality on social issues. Hell, Prohibition was the abortion of its day for the party base. It split the party wide open in 1924 and the rift really wasn't healed until the 1932 election.

The south has earned plenty of criticism throughout American history. It has also been a continuing wellspring of actual, effective action to remedy some of the worst ills in American history. Any suggestion that the US would be better off without us is both stupid and ignorant.

[RainDog]

67. Democrats began to lose the south with the election of FDR

because the new deal was not applied in a racist manner. FDR didn't outright say he supported civil rights but his actions demonstrated that he did and white southerners let him know this. He won elections because of his economic populism, but he also stirred discontent b/c he did not hew to the segregationist cant.

when Truman ran, he lost four southern states to Strom Thurmon b/c Truman came out in support of civil rights.

southern whites continued to vote for democrats for the most part, however, b/c the democrats were seen as the party of the working class, as you say, but this was seen as WHITE working class in the south. And, really, the white male working class because the south was opposed to women or blacks getting all uppity with their rights.

however, with the passage of the civil rights act, for the first time (with the exception of Strom Thurmon's racist campaign), 5 of the 6 states in the deep south voted for Republicans in 1964.

in the 1968 election, 5 states in the deep south went with the segregationist George Wallace.

Six southern states voted against Clinton in 1996.

No doubt there are great political actors in the Democratic Party from the south. However, the southern white person has, overwhelmingly, decided to forgo his or her economic interests since the 1960s to vote for a party that sends coded racist messages constantly. Constantly.

That has been the strategy for Republicans to win elections - that and dangling culture war issues like abortion that they have shown they have no intention of addressing, as they could have during Dubya's time in office.

And they win the south on this basis.

[MFrohike]

78. And?

Peter King - New York
Grover Norquist - Massachusetts
Ronald Reagan - California
Richard Nixon - California
Bush family - Connecticut
William F. Buckley, Jr. - Connecticut
Rick Santorum - Pennsylvania
Ann Coulter - CT (I'm going to abbreviate from here on out)
Rudy Giuliani - NY
Matt Hale - IL
Richard Mellon Scaife - PA
Mitt Romney - MA
Donald Rumsfeld - IL
Fat Tony Scalia - NJ
Samuel Alito - NJ
John Roberts - NY

Those are just a few. You can decry OVERT southern bigotry, but please don't pretend we're the source of all evil.

There's more to say, but the blackout is coming. I'll leave it here for now.

[RainDog]

79. I didn't say the south is the source of all evil

you're framing the issue in that way, not me.

[MFrohike]

80. Haha

Reread your OP, then try saying that with a straight face.

[Hugabear]

65. Oh gawd, not this fucking shit again...

I get it. If it weren't for the South, then the United States would be a goddamned fucking utopia, with everyone getting along with everyone regardless of skin color, religion, sexual orientation, etc. After all, there are no fucking racist or religious extremists in the North.

x1000

[ellisonz]

91. +1000

[Odin2005]

66. Reconstruction was not radical enough.

It did not destroy the hierarchical authoritarianism of Southern culture, and that came back to bite us in the ass.

[Hawkowl]

77. No.

The civil war gave birth to the military industrial complex. The civil war was the first war in history that was fought on an industrial scale. War for profit on a massive industrial scale.

Eventually, probably sooner rather than later, the USA will splinter into two or more countries. All empires splinter because they get to big to administer, fund, etc. I hope it will be peaceable and I think the world will be better off.

[Kellerfeller]

83. No

States voluntarily joined the union. I've never understood why some considered it so sacred that no one is allowed to leave.

If a group of states no longer want to be part of the union, why should they have to?

[RZM]

89. I think that was the big debate before the Civil War

If a state wants to secede, should they be allowed? I guess the consensus was 'no.'

[Kellerfeller]

92. I think you are right

It just makes no sense to me.

[Spider Jerusalem]

84. Let's try a different counterfactual here, shall we?

Was the Revolution worth winning?

If the rebellion of the colonists had been successfully crushed by the British, slavery would have been abolished long before the US got around to it (Britain outlawed slavery throughout the Empire in 1833); the US today would have a parliamentary government, on the Westminster model, and not the bastard elected monarchy where political compromises made in the 18th century make the business of government impossible that it has today; would have gained independence eventually anyway (as did Canada and Australia and New Zealand) and would probably have things like universal healthcare and so on that other former Dominions like the aforementioned ones have.

[Honeycombe8]

87. Very interesting. Something to ponder. nt

[RZM]

90. You never hear that one at all here

The founding is a matter of pride for left, right, and center in this country. As bad a rap as the right gives the the left on this, I think most liberals are proud patriots.

[Spider Jerusalem]

93. No, but you do hear a lot of "we'd be better off without the South"

from a lot of smug Northern assholes. I'm not sure how that's any better. I'm saying this as someone who cast his first vote for Bill Clinton...a Southerner, by the way...and who has never voted Republican. And my family have been Southerners going back to Jamestown. Are there a lot of things about the South that could be better? Sure. Is it a liberal paradise? No. Is it any more helpful for people on the political left to say stupid and intemperate things about the South than it is for ignorant right-wingers to rant about "Massachusetts liberals" and "San Francisco homosexuals"? The answer again is...no, it isn't.

[RZM]

94. I agree that it's bullshit

I say this as an Ohioan. This is one state where the northern tradition in the Civil War is very much alive. Both Grant and Sherman were from here, the state was a vital part of the underground railroad (and home to the museum of the same name) and I type this less than 1000 yards from where a hockey team called the 'Blue Jackets' plays its home games. The pre-game rah-rah video on the giant screens actually depicts Union soldiers in combat.

But the south bashing on DU is way over the top. I think the reason has less to do with the Civil War and racism and much more to do with the fact that southern whites vote conservative in large numbers. It's not about history, it's about the contemporary political landscape. What people fail to appreciate is that southerners are our fellow citizens and just as American as anybody else. Rather than talk about excising them from the body politic, I prefer to disagree with their politics but appreciate them as my countrymen. That's what the Civil War was about in the end. It was about bringing them back into the fold where they belong.

[cordelia]

95. Nicely put. Thank you.

[RainDog]

97. well, we could ask about that one too

personally, I would be better off as a Canadian.

[RZM]

98. Do you know which side Britain supported in the Civil War?

Here's hint, it rhymes with 'Ponblederacy'

[RainDog]

99. yes, I know. because of economic interests in the cotton industry

I think it's funny that people are all up in it b/c Republicans from S.C. (where the Confederacy seceded) basically used Juan Williams as "the black man" to substitute for Obama, for their racism, etc. etc. and, b/c I say it makes me sick that this happens and so, honestly, was it worth it to save the union when you can look at a voting record that demonstrates a large enough majority to win electoral college votes demonstrates a pattern of racism among whites in the region that is unlike any other region... people claim I am evil and ignorant and whatever else.

then, the separate issue, or not exactly separate, is that at this day and age, I would be better off if I lived in Canada.

I'm not really trying to refight the civil war. I'm just frustrated that reactionary right wingers in this nation have political traction at all.

And, with that, I'll leave it there.

[RZM]

103. That and great power maneuvering

One of the few European great powers to support the north was actually Russia. This was because Russia and the US had a common rival in Britain. The British supported the south in part because they wanted to weaken US power. Russia supported the north because they believed US power was useful against Britain.

Also, they have political traction because there are plenty of people who are conservative. That's just a fact of life. In my experience, I've found it bad form to say that fellow citizens with whom you disagree should leave the country. Like it or not, they are your brothers and sisters and you have to live and work with them. It's how things go here. Democracy isn't pretty, but it's here nonetheless.

[RainDog]

106. except that's not what I said

...that some should leave the country. the reality is that I wish I could leave this country and I would if I could.

[Kali]

130. ha

good point!

[Honeycombe8]

85. Have you seen PBS' series "The Civil War" by Ken Burns?

It has nine parts and should be required watching for every American. It is the most thorough account of the Civil War I've heard of.

As for your question, whether we should've remained "one" or been separated, I've wondered that, myself. It COULD have ended up North United States and South United States, right?

But for the rest of your post, the Civil War was not ONLY about slavery. Slavery was the match to the fire, but it was a disagreement over the power of the federal government to tell the states what to do. Slavery, property rights, taxes, education, etc..

As far as shooting the "losers" of the war...what a heartless thing to say. The southerners were countrymen, and sometimes relatives, of the northerners. The southerners died in huge numbers, suffering terribly before death, because of the south's poverty during the war and inability to care for the troops while losing. Soldiers near the end of the war fought barefoot and starving.

Also remember that most people in the south did not own slaves. Like now, even though your country goes to war, many are disconnected from it, living in rural areas, minding their own business. The troops were drafted.

If you took the property and money from the southerners who owned slaves...well, a lot of them lost everything in the war. As for the rest, if you took their property and money, do you also take the property and money from those in the north that the southerners did business with? Those southerners travelled frequently to the north, buying goods and services, and the north bought farm products and items made with cotton and other farm products from the south, and sold them for a profit. So the north profited from the low prices resulting from slavery.

At the end of the war, many parts of the south were decimated. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in that war, I believe. The area paid a high price for trying to secede. But they were never truly the enemy. They were all Americans.

Ken Burns' The Civil War is a spectacular and riveting account of the war, if you ever get a chance to see it. (Yet another reason for the existence of PBS.)

[YoungDemCA]

96. The Confederacy was not worth saving...

...so yes, the Union was worth preserving.

[lynne]

100. You suggesting a "Final Solution" should have occurred?

Round up everyone south of the Mason Dixon and execute them? That's exactly what you implied. Bad news, someone else came up with that idea in the 1930's and it ended poorly.

And - no - the union was NOT worth saving at the expense of 650,000 dead friends, family and neighbors.

[RainDog]

105. actually, no. that's not what I said

I talked about slaveholders. There were a lot of poor whites in the south at the time - but, like reincarnation, everyone pretends they were the descendant of a king, not a peasant.

[chrisa]

101. The existence of both the CSA and the Union would be an impossibility.

The United States would have been in a state of perpetual war until either side won (image constant fighting, cooling off, and then more fighting - for years).

I think a long stalemate between the two would have been 1000X more destructive than even the CSA winning the war.

[BigDemVoter]

102. Oh lemme see. . .

Hmmm, we could do without a lot of those former confederate states, as they mostly vote in lockstep with whatever loony toons evangelical is on the lam. Preserve the union with what we know now? I dunno.

Ugly border situation if they had split, and guess which side would be the truculent, bellicose one?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

104. wouldn't this topic be more suited for American History

or Speculation (as in very Creative)

or perhaps

Theory (as in the utmost of Conspiracy)

or maybe even

Trash Thread (as in the most useless trash talk to be engaged in on the internets)

[Fearless]

107. I think this is a far more complex question than a yes/no response...

Can do justice. And, we only know what happened as a result of the Union reuniting. Perhaps we would be worse off, perhaps better. We can't know. Speculating will be ill-informed at best without the other side of the coin.

[RainDog]

110. Literalism is also a problem

as in taking something literally.

anyway, it certainly was interesting to see the replies.

[Taverner]

109. Yes. It was worth it.

Granted, the Civil War could have been prevented, as could have the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII and Vietnam.

But yes, the Union was worth preserving.

Miami, Atlanta, Birmingham, Austin, New Orleans, Charleston (both), Biloxi, Mobile and countless other cities and communities all make it worth it.

[Bucky]

113. The larger context is that, without the South, there'd be no Dukes of Hazard

I don't want to live in a world where I'm not tempted to screech "Yeeeee-haaawwww" and then floor it every time my car approaches a railroad crossing

[JoeyT]

114. Good plan.

I'm sure you'll enjoy living right next to a hostile country full of religious fanatics.

Good luck with the "destroy them" thing, too, since you'd have a fully armed populace and a military against a population that relied solely on the military to protect them. (How long would RTKBA last without the south around? Not long.) Without the influence of the blue states, the red states would have more and more zealots as the sane people fled, so they'd likely kill everyone they came across including the unarmed civilians. Sure a handgun or rifle won't beat a tank most of the time, but it will beat a stick every single time.

Now the states you prefer to keep would probably be able to repel major attacks, but your entire economy would be eaten by military spending and your streets would look like Germany's immediately following WW2. Work commutes would be a real pain when you've got to wait for a tank column to pass by.

Speaking of Germany and WW2, the South would have probably thrown in their lot with Germany, Pearl Harbor would have never happened, and by the time the US got involved, it would have been too late. Instead of sitting here complaining about how terrible the south is, you'd be complaining about how terrible whatever they decided to name the new empire is.

[hifiguy]

119. I've mulled that question over for years.

There's no easy answer, but I think that Reconstruction should have lasted a lot longer and been much more vigorous in rooting out the worst elements of the slaveocracy. The post-Civil War South never really accepted the fact that it had been thoroughly defeated and its repellent "social institutions" dashed on the rocks of reason and humanity. Keeping the South under Union guns until about 1900 or so may have made the truth of the situation more apparent.

What is amazing is that the Germans and Japanese managed to understand, after WW II, that they had royally screwed the pooch and cleaned up their act in just a few years. The revanchists in those countries were quickly relegated to the furthest margins. The South, on the other hand, retains a substantial portion of people who never accepted their crushing by Lincoln, Grant and Sherman.

Lincoln's ultimate flaw was that he failed to understand that there are just plain evil, rotten people in the world, as is evidenced by his Second Inaugural Speech.

[Proud Public Servant]

121. The CSA would be easy to imagine; the USA would be harder

Last edited Thu Jan 19, 2012, 12:12 PM - Edit history (1)

Had the union not been preserved, the fate of the CSA would be clear: it would have evolved into the Western Hemisphere's South Africa.

But the USA is trickier. Some speculation:

- The USA would have become, essentially, a one-party government, as Democrats were demonized as the party of rebellion. This, in fact, is what happened immediately after the Civil War, but the Dems staged a comeback in the waning days of Reconstruction, when popular opinion in the North turned against Reconstruction efforts and Southern states began to be "redeemed" (that is, ruled by white Democrats). They were certainly the minority party for at least 2 generations after the Civil War, but without the South as part of the US it's difficult to imagine they would have survived at all.

- Without a significant black underclass in the North (a product of the early 20th century "Great Migration&quot , other groups would have had to play the role of despised minority. These almost certainly would have been Southern and Eastern European immigrants (including my grandparents), who would not have been allowed to assimilate.

- In a much smaller USA (more on that in a second), regional and rural/urban splits would not play the same role; instead, class would have become the major fault line in US politics, as it did in Europe. The emergence of a Socialist party as a major force in the USA becomes a real possibility; President Debs is imaginable.

- And it would be a smaller USA. Without the South, it's unlikely the North would have the wherewithal to settle a continental empire. The likeliest scenario is that the Pacific Coast states would break away and become their own nation. Also likely is that (1) Texas would break away from the CSA and expand its boundaries in the Southwest (while the CSA would add Cuba and Hispaniola to its territory), and (2) nobody would bother with the Northern Plains states, which could very well lead to the existence of an established Sioux nation with its own territory.

So I'm seeing a former USA carved into 5 countries; in the one my family lived in, the much-diminished USA, it's unlikely we Catholic Slavs ever would have been allowed to rise into the middle class (let alone that, by the 3rd generation, we'd boast Ivy-League grads and PhDs). The CSA, a race-based feudal society, would be simply unspeakable. I have a harder time imagining what the Republics of Texas and Pacifica might be like.

[RainDog]

126. guess you sort of prove my point

bye

[RainDog]

128. lol

here's my point

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002185204

[LanternWaste]

124. I suppose we all want to isolate ourselves from those we disagree with...

I suppose we all want to isolate ourselves from those we disagree with to one extent or another. Seems codifying it into even more imaginary red and black lines on a map seems rather an excessive form of doing so though (although I realize it does allow us to fantasize even more of a fictional, dystopian, us-v-them fantasy in which we are always the hero and we always win...)

But as our similarities are greater en toto than our differences, and as 20th century mass media has homogenized us even more, it seems that if we are indeed fixated on the differences, it's simply done by our own choice. Thankfully, that small, petulant demographic has been in a declining and insignificant minority for a few generations now...

[RainDog]

131. not according to this information

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002185204