"Remember that had we as a nation followed the Southern model for government and social values up to now, we would not be near the great and inclusive nation that we are today. Remember that 19 red states (as determined by votes in the 2012 presidential election) are given back more in federal revenue than their citizens are taxed. The top 10 states that give more to the federal government than they get back are all blue states.
If you were the CEO of a progressive corporation looking to relocate, would you pick the state where people grow up having basic health care that includes preventive care for which your company doesn't directly have to pay? Or would you pick a state where people can't afford to even get basic preventive care and have high levels of diabetes, obesity, infant mortality, etc.?- Jonathan H. Reilly, letter in today's Colorado Springs Independent.
It is time for the non-Southern American majority, in alliance with many non-elite Southerners of all races, to target and attack every element of the Southern Autonomy Project simultaneously. If the neo-Confederates want to wage political and economic war, their fellow Americans should choose to respond with political and economic war on all fronts, not on the terms and in the places the Southern conservatives choose.- Michael Lind, The South is Holding America Hostage, salon.com
Confederate sympathizers across the land continue to blow noxious clouds of revisionist history on how the South was "wronged", that it was really a "war of Northern Aggression" (never mind the South seceded first) and wow...how great things would have been if the Confederates had prevailed! (Actually, in many cultural-political ways they did, as noted by author Joshua Zeitz in his article 'Dixie's Victory' in the Sept. 2002 issue of American Heritage. From fundie, bible pounding hellfire religion, to run -amuck gun toting and incessant braying by the political class for ever more tax cuts and 'smaller government', the South really has put its odious mark on the nation.)
In fact, we are seeing the attempted revival of the Old Confederacy (certainly its values) play out again on the national landscape with this government shutdown – and as I remarked several blogs earlier – this is an economic manifestation of a Civil War. It is also an effort to racially tar Obama by the diversionary subterfuge tactic of repealing (they call it “defunding”) his signature ACA health care law. Whether hailing from North or South, the Tea Party is the reincarnation of the Confederates who once tried to secede from the Union. They can’t this time, but the next best thing is to destroy the functions of government so totally that – starting with their ignorant base- they will elicit (or try to) millions across the nation to demand Obama and the Dems capitulate - thereby effectively returning the nation to “Southern style” economic governance.
For those lacking a historical bearing here, “Southern style” governance means a basic formula including:
- No church-state separation and bibles admitted in schools as well as creationism taught instead of evolution
- No unions at all, period, in no manner, shape or form
- Minimal government spending on social services, and repeal of Social Security, Medicare
- Massive government spending on anything military, including building as many bombers, fighters and new missiles as possible.
- Total outlawing of abortion as well as contraception and also rendering illegal a host of sexual acts, including masturbation, oral sex.
- Imprisoning all pregnant women who are deemed to be risking the life of their unborn by any “reckless” acts – such as motorcycling, skiing or drinking alchohol.
- Keeping all females barefoot and pregnant, by altering employment laws, in the interest of “biblical mores and family values”
Now , what IF these Tea Bagger miscreants and traitors had prevailed in the Civil War? Let's give their worshippers and many others a bit of a reality check on what the state of the nation would be today. Maybe, just maybe, some will think again about their derelict ideations and realize the best outcome was the one that transpired.
If the Confederacy ‘Tea Baggers’ Had Won:
1) The Trade Union movement would never have originated in the 1940s. Kids would still be toiling starting from the age of 8 from sunrise to sundown. No worker's compensation, no paid time and a half for overtime, no time off for illness, or family problems.
2) Women, if they had jobs at all, would be working for less than half of what males earn.
3)Blacks would never have been accepted into the military or as football or baseball players. (They might have been allowed to play basketball, but who knows?)
4) The Jim Crow laws would still prevail, with separate facilities (restaurants, motels, rest rooms, etc.) for each race. Blacks would continue to have to sit at the back of the bus. Rosa Parks -- had she refused to change her bus seat-- would have been flogged then flogged again, and likely branded.
5) The lowest wages, slave wages, would predominate throughout the land. African-Americans would be disallowed for all jobs other than possibly house servants or lawn workers, landscapers, and even then only be paid by meals or housing - like today's sugar cane workers. No benefits, no health care.
6) Immigration, especially illegal, would be disallowed at the point of guns. Anyone crossing the border of even a light brown color would be shot on the spot.
7) The Confederate Battle flag would fly everywhere. There'd be no Lincoln Memorial in D.C. but rather a Jefferson Davis Memorial, with only whites allowed to visit.
8) There'd be little or no entertainment except for the Confederate Broadcasting System, and the Confederate Movie Network. The latter would show 'Birth of A Nation' on an endless loop, while the former would have all the current news about the great new Confederate strides.
9) Andersonville would never have been closed, and would remain today a Confederate -run concentration camp for those with pro-Northern sympathies.
10) Bibles (KJV) would be mandated in every home under pain of being horse-whipped - or sent to Andersonville!
11) Southern -cum-biblical morality law would rule the land. Eye for an eye justice, and morality from the Old Testament.
12) The military would be the biggest employer and the budgets would be allocated at nearly $1.5 trillion a year. The national debt would be twice what it is now, given the Southern ascendants had forbidden any taxes (thus, no 13th amendment to the Constitution would have been passed). Also, no Federal Reserve. (which originated as part of the 13th amendment).
13) There would be NO Medicare or Social Security. Those would be seen as "Yankee inventions". People would either make do with what they had, or perish. If kind enough, a gentle neo-Confederate would put an oldster out of his or her misery with a shot to the head or a shiv from an old Rebel bayonet.
14) The life expectancy would be 55 for men, as opposed to the median of 75, and 62 for women, as opposed to 78. All the wonderful modern medical inventions that beat back disease, including polio vaccine, flu vaccines, smallpox and typhoid vaccines, as well as MRI machines, CAT scans and colonoscopies...would never have been invented. Cancer and smallpox would be the number one killers along with self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head.
15) University research would be almost non-existent. As opposed to thousands of universities such as we have now, there'd be maybe 100 in all. The only ones assured of existence would be the Ivies, e.g. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc. because of their endowments.
16)Confederate History would be taught at all high schools and universities.
17) Corporal punishment (e.g. paddling using monster paddles 21/2 -3' long) would be mandated nationwide at all high schools for both sexes, as opposed to being confined to mainly Southern High schools (e.g. in MS, AL, GA, NC), as is the case today.
18) Bible reading would be mandated at all high schools nationwide, as well as prayer in schools. Any atheist kids, if they existed or revealed themseles, would get the paddle about every day.
19) Prisons would actually be converted to work farms, and prisoners (for all crimes, including anti-Confederate sentiments, civil rights protests etc.) would be rendered neo-slaves. Forced to work in the fields from dawn to dusk and flogged by overseers at any slight infraction.
20) Barack Obama would never have become president, nor would Herman Cain have beeen able to contend for a spot on the Republican ticket. It's also likely that the most Cain would have risen to in his employment would have been 'pizza delivery boy'- never the CEO of Godfather Pizzas!
21) Neither Barack nor Michele Obama would have received the Ivy League education they did at Harvard. Indeed, they'd each likely have only been able to attend a "Negro college" - if allowed to go at all.
22) Miscegenation laws (e.g. against the races mating or mixing) would apply under pain of instant execution...e.g. flogging then lynching. (Thus, Barack Obama might never have been born).
23) Adult Yankee atheists would be given the choice of leaving the country, or being permanently remanded to a CSA work camp.
See also:
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/07/shutdown_shows_the_civil_war_never_ended_partner/
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