America's Dysfunctional Marriage

// In recent years it has become clear that America is ripping apart at the seams because of a new divide: this one between the Left and the Right. //

"America" has been conspicuous in having no real visible left for decades. It has been just the "ins" and the "outs" taking turns since WWII.

What is a bit different now, with the preventive wars gone wrong, the financial bubbleburst, the Occupy & Tea Party movements, is that nascent leftist talk is being heard in the land.

I actually saw Noam Chomsky being mentioned on SDA. Where will it all end?

A Missouri man had once written the Confederate authorities that all they had to do to get rid of the Saint Louis Unionists was destroy the local breweries and seize all the beer: "... By this means the Dutch [Germans] will all die in a week and the Yankees will then run from this State.
— M. Jeff Thompson of Missouri

Ya'see it was all about the BEER...! All that slavery rubbish was just a cover story fer all them jumped up on water and hops.

All that Joe Biden drivel about 'puttin them all back in chains'; is just a distraction away from his nefarious plans to take over Anheuser-Busch from InBev.

Damn we shoulda seen this avenue of attack comin a long ways off...!

Lay up your Budweiser, Michlelob and Stella Artois the Dems are coming for your BEER...!

Cheers

Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”

And there is no Abraham Lincoln waiting in the wings.

Not even close.

Dizzy wrote, "America" has been conspicuous in having no real visible left for decades."

One word: Huh?!?

I'm not old enough to go back further, but one could argue that Walter Cronkite was the first Lefty in the MSM to show his true colours. That was in 1968, 44 years ago.

Wasn't the 60's Hippy movement the Visible Left?
Hasn't Hollywood, since at least the 1970's been the Visible Left?
Haven't the Pro-Abortion folks since at least the early 1970's been the Visible Left?
Haven't the Affirmative Action proponents, since the 1970's been the Visible Left?
Hasn't the Eco-Guilt crowd, since at least Al Gore's tenure, been the Visible Left?

This is just a short list off the top of my head. There are clearly many, many more that constitute Dizzy's non-existent "Visible Left".

I would argue that getting rid of Quebec would help save the children in the ROC. I hope my bias is showing.

dizzy, I'm sure you are joking with your remark that the left has been invisible in the US for decades.

It's the opposite; every university campus is stocked with them and their books, their articles, their teachings. The newspapers and media are primarily leftist. The student body and their rallies and agendas are leftist; the OWS was leftist; the Obama gang is radical leftist and very outspoken. There are blogs (Move on, Huffington) and so on. Where have you been?

As for the north and south divide, that's not just in the US; it's in almost every society, and I admit, is curious and interesting. Why does it emerge?

In Italy, you have the north sneering at the south; the Milanese consider themselves cultured and consider the south, including Rome, as peasants. Same thing in France, which views the south as, also, filled with peasants. The south on the other hand views the northerners as cold-hearted mercantile machines.

Populations always seem to regionalize and add identity tags to their regions. In Canada we have urban and rural and most certainly east versus west. Same thing in the US, where the west coast barely talks to the east coast, for each defines the other as having 'unacceptable values'.

Hey Robert;

Is there a way to get the interview without joining the DMZ?

This is more like late 1774. There are no defining borders, the enemy is your neighbor. The progressives of that time won the revolution and drove their conservatives of the time north into Canada. That left them a little top heavy in fractiousness and they have never escaped it.

How does that notion even work, when it was Southern democrats who pushed for secession from the Union in an effort to preserve slavery, and Lincoln was a Republican?

Stupid progressives...

Interview appears to be for subscribers only.

Sorry guys, I didn't realize that it was only available for DMZ members. Let me see if I can find it elsewhere.

Chuck Thompson hates the South because that's where all the money and talent from the Northeast is draining to. Kate posted some migration charts recently, check those out. Net outflow from east coast cities is large and growing.

But seriously now folks: How do these guys get attention? His premise is absurd and his facts are of the total bull@#$% variety.
I could do that sort of thing. Someone please tell me who i have to be nice to so that I can get my cockamamie thesis on human-chicken crossbreeding and the originals of modern progressive theory published. I want to be interviewed by Dennis Miller!

   ET:  'Same thing in the US, where the west coast barely talks to the east coast, for each defines the other as having 'unacceptable values'.

Most of your comment is right on.   But to say that the West/East Coasties are out of sync philosophically is 180 degs off.   Much of the East (including Wash DC) and Left Coast are deep, deep, Blue.   It's us folks in 'Flyover Country' that the Coasties distain.   And vice versa, of course.
.

marty - yes, you are absolutely right. It's Coast versus Interior in this case.

But there's still a sense that the East Coast is 'cultured wealth' and the West Coast is 'vulgar wealth'.

The link to the interview has now been fixed. You can click on it in the original posting or here.

wonders why the American(Canadian) electoral system must be "held hostage by a coalition of bought-and-paid-for political swamp scum from the most uneducated, morbidly obese, racist, morally indigent, xenophobic, socially stunted, and generally ass-backwards part of the country."i.e. that is Crapouver,Trawana,and Queerbec.
Different place,same pile of sh1t.
(and in 3..2..1)

Actually, slavery was just a premise, the North declared War on the South 6 months after the South started printing their own currency.

ET said: "But there's still a sense that the East Coast is 'cultured wealth' and the West Coast is 'vulgar wealth'."

More of an observable fact, that.

dizzy said: "I actually saw Noam Chomsky being mentioned on SDA."

Yas. Well, many of us have read Chomsky but we don't bother mentioning him because he's mostly a wrong-headed idiot. He had one good idea a really long time ago, but its all been steeply down hill ever since.

Speaking of left versus right, there's a column bemoaning the admission of Condi Rice to the all-male Augusta Golf Club.

Dave Zirin in The Nation writes about Condi Rice as a woman breaking the all-male barrier:

"Condi Rice as a symbol of female power? Only if by power, we mean the power to put thousands of Iraqi women in graves all in the name of a war based on lies that she actively promoted. [...]

In a sane world, Rice would be awaiting trial at the Hague. Instead, she gets to play golf at a club that, incidentally, didn't allow African-Americans until 1990."

So, the left only allows 'their kind', who think as they do, to have any rights or break any barriers.

Well, all I can say is that I should listen to Dennis Miller some more.

I wonder why there is a divide?

Kind of like, there is one set of people who believe there is a thing called legitimate rape, and one set of people who just call it rape.

The bottom line is the South has a basic allegence to property rights...rights in general...very in line with the notions of the first civil war (1776)....with a heavy overtone of tribalism and conservative values.

The Confederacy was without doubt Democrat but that party lost the South when it veered left.

The War of Northern Aggression was just that...

Notions about it being about slavery was/is propaganda....remember the USA hung John Brown not the state of Kansas or Missouri or Virginia.

The war between the states (AKA the American civil war) was NOT over slavery - this is the excuse the yellow northern press at the time propagandized the public with to insire conscription. The representatives of the southern states left congress in secession because the federal government was not honoring the 10th amendment of the constitution concerning state rights/jurisdiction.

Slavery was a side issue but was something that stuck in the craw of the northern manufacturing oligarchs because they could not compete on the free market with southern goods produced with low labor costs - the morality of the northern political class in politicizing the abolishion of slavery was actualy a pragmatic plan to destroy the southern economy and buy up raw material sources cheaply after the south was destroyed by war.

The morality of war is never just and there is always an ulterior motive and a class who profit from the destruction. Slavery only mattered to a very small puritan element, most fought in that war to preserve their homeland/farms against rape by northern imperialists who owned the levers of power in Washington.

occam- nice outline. I agree; I don't think the American population went into a vicious war, the deadliest in its history, over a moral cause, ie, over slavery.

The reason was economic, and it was indeed about low cost labour and property rights. Most certainly, the north had its own prejudices against various ethnic groups, eg, the Irish, the Catholics, etc. And the workers' lives in the industrial north were not any easier than in the cotton fields of the south.

However, there is another issue, a structural one, that might be relevant. This is the disjunction in one nation between two absolutely opposite economies. The north was industrial, based around the town, the urban worker who rented or lived in a small duplex, the railroad,the factory. The south was industrial, based around the rural plantation, the extended family in this rural enclave.

These are two vastly different economic modes, and it is difficult to see them working together. That's why the south wanted out; it recognized the vast gulf between the two. The north wanted the land of the south and wasn't prepared to lose it. Nothing to do with slavery.

"America" has been conspicuous in having no real visible left for decades.

Dizzy probably meant visible as in Bolshevik coup visibility. These people are there all right, just doing their work a little more sneakily. Think van Jones, Alinsky, Chomsky. et al.

"Slavery was a side issue but was something that stuck in the craw of the northern manufacturing oligarchs because they could not compete on the free market with southern goods produced with low labor costs"

Now that's what I call a free market. Couldn't get much lower than those costs.

Occam, I mostly agree with what you post here on SDA, but do you ever think you do harm to your argument by trivializing human chattel slavery, and the role it played in the War? Slavery was part of the supreme law of the land in the Confederacy (Scroll down).

I am claiming that Abolition was one of several reasons, and that it was something higher than a "side issue". I think that a lot of volunteers were political, but that most joined up because they thought that was what a man did if he was worth a damn, nothing more.

For the record, I think that guy on the Dennis Miller show is brave in print, and I doubt he had the courage of his fat mouth when he was driving around the South smirking at the people being polite and civil to him. I disagree with Dennis Miller about dividing up the country--I'd as soon create reservations for the Left.

"... the North declared War on the South 6 months after the South started printing their own currency."

I'd love a source for that factoid ...

MM

Southerners have been denigrated and stereotyped by Northern writers since the civil war era, certainly throughout the 20th century. Look at newpapers, movies, comic strips, radio shows, TV for confirmation. Read HL Menken's description of fellow (though rural Appalachian people) for sheer bigotry he is hard to top. Or watch an early 40s movie, Sergent York, and see if the people depicted appear to be genuine Americans.
The irony is that without the South huge amounts of American cultural accomplishment would not exist. Think of American music without the southern connection, pretty thin gruel that would be.

The only complaint I have about the US South is that it's so damn hot and humid in the summer. Otherwise, I quite like the place and the prevalence of NRA stickers on vehicles is the highest I've ever seen. Southerners are strong believers in the 2nd Amendment and just that fact alone must drive leftists crazy.

I'm really sick of this idea that like minded people must group together and make their own state or whatever. That's not democracy. If this so-called "liberal" succeeds in his mission and forms some liberal paradise (where have we heard this before) which is ideologically "pure" what is the solution to the problem of people changing their minds about liberalism? I think we've seen this movie before...

"One & a half centuries ago, America fought a bloody civil war between the North and the South over slavery."

I was always told it was over farm commodity prices. Correct me if I`m wrong. I believe only 5% of the people who fought for the Confederate States ever owned or controlled slaves.

My Grandmother was a high school teacher in Vermont. That was her interpretation of facts.

Dennis is right when he says people would be fleeing the progressive side of the U.S. divide as they saw their world crumble and the other's blossom. (North Korea and South Korea come to mind) You know that border fence along the Mexican border that Democrats won't build? After a split, the progressives are sure to build one then. Not with Mexico of course, but between the two U.S. halves, likely with slave labor and armed guards as it will have to be done quickly to prevent a massive exodus of recently converted Conservatives.

Good luck Chuck.

Re: slavery: contrary to the bleatings of confederacy apologists, it was about slavery. Southern leaders themselves made that crystal clear in their own words. Lincoln did do some awful stuff like conscription and eliminating Habeaus corpus. But he was still a force for good. Did you know he also killed vampires?!?!
Sherman's techniques should be replicated in Afghanistan. The South got what it deserved.

Canada was born because of the Civil war. Ever wonder why the BNA act is so Strong about Provincial rights from Immigration to health care? They didnt want a repeat of the federal government over taking provincial rights. Making a mockery of our Colonial Parliment. Its why to this day the Federalists use Tax money to force Provinces to go their way such as health care monies.
The fact that 50,000 Canadian vets of that war came home from the than most bloody modern war. Also inspired quick Nation hood 2 years after the conflict. The RCMP was dispatched out West as well.

Justthinkin:

This quotation is taken from a recent article on zerohedge:

The “New Populism” Makes A Manufactured Quote Very Apt And Timely – On this day back in 2003, we pondered a fascinating quote. It was said to be from a book titled “The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic” by a professor of history at Edinburgh University. His name was said to be Alexander Fraser Tytler. Most fascinating (to me) was that the book was said to have been published in 1776 just as the American Republic was being born.

Here is the quote:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loss of fiscal responsibility, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world's great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage."

The start of the civil war had absolutely nothing to do with slavery. It had everything to do with the US refusing to recognize the secession of the Southern States and refusing to abandon fortresses in the South. The direct cause of the war was the attack on Fort Sumter. The secondary cause was the refusal of the North to accept secession.

The states seceded because Lincoln treated the South like Trudeau treated the West. One issue among many was slavery.

ET & Robert W.

There's and old book ">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Been_Down_So_Long_It_Looks_Like_Up_to_Me"> Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me And I guess if you have been far enough right for long enough, it all looks ......

I should perhaps have said "visibly in power" -- all the old commies {or old Nazis} you could muster wouldn't make much of a dent against the water cannons & tanks that even municiapal police forces have now.

// the Obama gang is radical leftist //

Take a look at the background of Obama's cabinet. About the same number are Goldman Sachs graduates as for the Republicans
How about Larry Summers -- former President of Harvard, who as head of the World Bank wrote this memo --
'Dirty' Industries:
Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]?
I can think of three reasons: [...]
&
// Walter Cronkite was the first Lefty in the MSM to show his true colours. [...]. //
Walter Cronkite ??? LBJ -- "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."
&
// Wasn't the 60's Hippy movement the Visible Left? //
Abbie Hoffman "It’s embarrassing, you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on a Best Sellers List."
&
// Hasn't Hollywood, since at least the 1970's been the Visible Left? //
Ask Clint, or John [Miriam] Wayne "Why Can't things be black & white"?

// As for the north and south divide, that's not just in the US //
That's a fact. You could add the Prussians & the Bavarians, or the england & Scotland & [within scotland] the lowlanders & the highlanders.
Some might be a legacy of past wars.

Read “black author” Lerone Bennett Jr. - Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream

“Lincoln was a crude bigot who habitually used the N word and had an unquenchable thirst for blackface-minstrel shows and demeaning "darky" jokes. He supported the noxious pre-Civil War "Black Laws," which stripped African Americans of their basic rights in his native Illinois, as well as the Fugitive Slave Act, which compelled the return to their masters of those who had escaped to free soil in the North. But Bennett's main theme is that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was only "a ploy" designed to keep as many slaves in bondage as possible until Lincoln could build support for his plan for ending slavery: "colonization," a preposterous scheme to ship the black population either to Africa or South America. His fondest dream, Bennett writes, was of a "lily-white America without Native Americans, African Americans and Martin Luther Kings."

These facts are not new, of course, in part because other historians have responded to a furious anti-Lincoln article Bennett wrote for Ebony in 1968 by providing less heroic profiles of the 16th President.”

“....As University of Florida historian W. Fitzhugh Brundage wrote in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, it contains the "most systematic, best-researched and compelling critique of Lincoln's [beliefs about race] that I know of."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,996904-1,00.html

Scar >

Are you really saying that Iraq was not about weapons of mass destruction, Afghanistan about killing Osama Bin Laden, and Libya about freeing poor little brown people from a murderous tyrant?

Wars always seem to have high and mighty causes that have little to do with reality.

Lincoln was nothing more than a thieving lawyer for the railways

Hey michael st.paul's

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America_dollar

The Confederate Congress met in Montgomery, Alabama on 9 March 1861 and authorized the issuing of paper currency, according to wiki the south started printing in April of 1861 and the war started April 12, 1861. March 9 to April 12 is like let me double check, yep just over 2 months.

That was 10 minutes of using google, you can do it to.

FREE >

"Lincoln was nothing more than a thieving lawyer for the railways"

Aw common, Lincoln was the racist poster child for Liberal welfare ghettos, baby murder factories, and the ex-president Obamba “identifies with the most”.

That is why the Liberal war on black people puts Lincoln at the top of the poop pile while they convince the unwashed, uneducated masses to disarm themselves and lick his Negro hating boots.

How long was the American Civil War raging before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation? If it were a benevolent moral crusade, why not start it off with that Proclamation?

Draft riots in New York, industrial sabotage in Massachusetts by Confederate sympathizers. It wasn't nearly the stark good vs. evil dichotomy its victors have since promulgated.

Of course, slavery was a disgusting institution that needed to end one way or the other, this I say as a Southerner. But the insufferably smug and imperialistic attitude of Yankees is a real thing. What the wider world observes as "the ugly American" is in fact the Yankee subspecies of American.

MissAnthropy >

Yup US Southerner's are generally the friendliest and most hospitable American's I've found as a Canadian. Big cities or not.

Have met some good people from other parts as well, but the overall culture of confident but humble professionalism is not the same.

It actually felt a little weird many decades ago when I started spending lots of time in Texas and Louisiana in the way that near strangers I had just met always insisted on taking me somewhere, to their favorite steakhouse, BBQ grill, or Bar what have you. Always figured there was some sort of angle to it, until I realized that this is what wholesome friendly people do.

This whole book appears to be on Scribd --
This Republic of Suffering : Death and the American Civil War Drew Gilpin Faust 2008