Secession? Secession! You have got to be kidding me.

An interesting article I came across the other day. Thought you might find it interesting. . .


http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/29/4-big-reasons-plus-a-bunch-of-smaller-reasons-why-the-south-wont-rise-again/

Love the list!
Good and bad.

States receiving the most federal funding per tax dollar paid:
1. New Mexico: $2.63
2. West Virginia: $2.57
3. Mississippi: $2.47
4. District of Colombia: $2.41
5. Hawaii: $2.38
6. Alabama: $2.03
7. Alaska: $1.93
8. Montana: $1.92
9. South Carolina: $1.92
10. Maine: $1.78.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/states-federal-taxes-spending-charts-maps

With the distribution of taxes. Just saying.

It's a point to mention to the neo-secessionists when they claim the Southern (and the other Republican leaning) states would be better off without the rest of the nation. They wouldn't be.

more than the entire South .

But I couldn't tell if the author intended "grits" to be a plus or a minus.

For reasons I cannot divulge at this point, grits are, in fact, our secret weapon for world domination. Sensitive negotiations have been in progress for many years with Minnesota to join forces with the lutefisk contingent. Once a few sticking points have been resolved (the introduction of Quaker "Instant Grits 'n' Lye" was a giant flop, for example), we will be unstoppable.

Uff da, y'all.

We have polenta. Game set and match.

Polenta is just a fancy name for grits. Grits is grits

Which is why we don't need their grits.

Nyah.

and you taste my cornbread and pulled-pork barbecue. OK, if you're not into pork, try hubby's chicken. If nothing else, we *know* how to feed bears!

Oh, and "THEIR"... "THEIR"...??

I owe you a

http://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Without-Manifesto-Secession/dp/1451616651


Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession -

Chuck Thompson takes a hysterical look at the "threat" of "The South Is Gonna Do It Again" and turns the tables on the Take Our Country Back Crowd.

I have hesitated to post a review because we do have so many staunch liberal and progressive members at DU who come from the 14 states he makes a strong argument *nudge* for the rest of the country INSIST the South leaves the union.

The serious side of the book (layered throughout the humor) is the vast inequality that still exists in the South today. Example - how can we head into the future when the public school system is broken and RE- segregated? With people who wish to continue the inequality by their push of "charter" schools and the massive number of "Christian" (read whites only) schools that have sprung up in retaliation to the Brown V Board cases? Would the US be better to leave those 14 states Thompson outlines behind? Allow them to go so they can take science off the table and teach creationism without United States interference?

He touches on everything from the SEC College Football shakedown to the Jesus/Creation Museums, to the very definition of a Southern Strategy by one political party who benefits from the entrenchment of Confederate values, and how it could even become a huge tourist point for Americans . . . IE - made into an exotic foreign locale akin to Tanzania or Belize.

Might be worth a read - because while funny - its also a terribly sad analysis of perhaps WHY non Southerners and those who have no roots in the South (I'm in the North East - raised here but have Alabama red clay in veins) say . . . Why didn't we just let them go when we had the chance?

And all of them are mostly irrelevant. As long as there's cable tv, there won't be another war between the states

But I do suspect in my lifetime the domestic terrorism from Separatist groups is going to ramp up. I truly believe that. And let's not forget - Tim McVeigh was from just south of Buffalo NY.

HAD
There was a war fought to keep the country together.

And why on Earth do you want to just ignore the many people who don't deserve such a fate?

And what about those western states and others that are bright red? Giving them a pass? Some of them are home to some of the most virulent militias ever.
Look in your own damn back yard and turn over some rocks. You might be unpleasantly surprised what you find?
As I remember, Boston had a time integrating their schools.

In addition, you are hearing the loudest and most ignorant voices here. They are frantic and getting louder because they can read the tea leaves. They are doing everything in their power to entrench themselves. It would be easier to get rid of chiggers all over your body.

So, meh to you, that book, and everyone who wants us gone. We ain't going anywhere. Help those of us who are working in horrible conditions to move forward. I didn't live through the awful '60s and the hard won rights for people in these states to watch everyone shrug and say let them go.

MLK would be ashamed of everyone of you! Find a book of his speeches and writings and try to catch a clue. Read his 'Letter From The Birmingham Jail!'
Medgar Evers
Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman
Emmitt Till
And remember these people too. Explain to their relatives why you want us gone.
The 40 Who Fell in the Turbulence Of the U.S. Battles for Civil Rights
A civil rights memorial to be dedicated Sunday includes the names of the 40 people killed in the movement. The list, in chronological sequence, gives the date and circumstances of the person's death as described on the memorial. LEE, the Rev. George, killed May 7, 1955, for leading a voter registration drive in Belzoni, Miss. SMITH, Lamar, 63 years old, slain Aug. 13, 1955, for organizing black voters in Brookhaven, Miss. TILL, Emmett Louis, 14, slain Aug. 28, 1955, for speaking to a white woman in Money, Miss. REESE, John Earl, 16, slain Oct. 22, 1955, by nightriders opposed to black school improvements in Mayflower, Tex. EDWARDS, Willie Jr., killed Jan. 23, 1957, by the Ku Klux Klan in Montgomery, Ala. PARKER, Mack Charles, 23, taken from a jail and lynched April 25, 1959, in Poplarville, Miss. LEE, Herbert, 50, voter registration worker, killed Sept. 25, 1961, by a white legislator in Liberty, Miss. DUCKSWORTH, Roman Jr., taken from bus and killed April 9, 1962, by the police in Taylorsville, Miss. GUIHARD, Paul, a European reporter, killed Sept. 30, 1962, in a riot at University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss. MOORE, William Lewis, slain April 23, 1963, in a one-man march against segregation in Attalla, Ala. EVERS, Medgar, 28, civil rights leader, assassinated June 12, 1963, in Jackson, Miss. COLLINS, Addie Mae, 14, killed Sept. 15, 1963, in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. MCNAIR, Denise, 11, killed Sept. 15, 1963, in the Birmingham church bombing. ROBERTSON, Carole, 14, killed Sept. 15, 1963, in the church bombing. WESLEY, Cynthia, 14, killed Sept. 15, 1963, in the church bombing. WARE, Virgil Lamar, 13, killed Sept. 15, 1963, in a wave of racist violence in Birmingham, Ala. ALLEN, Louis, witness to the killing of a civil rights worker, assassinated Jan. 31, 1964, in Liberty, Miss. KLUNDER, the Rev. Bruce, killed April 7, 1964, protesting the construction of a segregated school in Cleveland. DEE, Henry Hezekiah, 19, killed May 2, 1964, by the Klan in Meadville, Miss. MOORE, Charles Eddie, 20, killed May 2, 1964, by the Klan in Meadville, Miss. CHANEY, James, 21, civil rights worker, abducted and slain June 21, 1964, by the Klan in Philadelphia, Miss. GOODMAN, Andrew, civil rights worker, abducted and slain June 21, 1964, by the Klan in Philadelphia, Miss. SCHWERNER, Michael, 24, rights worker, abducted and slain June 21, 1964, by the Klan in Philadelphia, Miss. PENN, Lemuel, 48, killed July 11, 1964, by the Klan while driving through Colbert, Ga. JACKSON, Jimmie Lee, civil rights marcher, killed Feb. 26, 1965, by a state trooper in Marion, Ala. REEB, the Rev. James, march volunteer, beaten to death on March 11, 1965 in Selma, Ala. LIUZZO, Viola Gregg, 39, killed March 25, 1965, by the Ku Klux Klan while transporting marchers on a highway near Selma, Ala. MOORE, Oneal, 34, black deputy, killed June 2, 1965, by nightriders in Varnado, La. BREWSTER, Willie Wallace, 38, killed July 18, 1965, by nightriders in Anniston, Ala. DANIELS, Jonathan, 26, seminary student, killed Aug. 20, 1965, by a part-time deputy in Hayneville, Ala. YOUNGE, Samuel Jr., student civil rights worker, killed Jan. 3, 1966, in a dispute over a whites-only restroom in Tuskegee, Ala. DAHMER, Vernon, black community leader, killed Jan. 10, 1966, in a Klan bombing in Hattiesburg, Miss. WHITE, Ben Chester, 67, killed June 10, 1966, by the Klan in Natchez, Miss. TRIGGS, Clarence, slain July 30, 1966, by nightriders in Bogalusa, La. JACKSON, Wharlest, 37, civil rights leader, killed Feb. 27, 1967, after promotion to ''white'' job in Natchez, Miss. BROWN, Benjamin, 22, civil rights worker, killed May 12, 1967, when the police fired on protesters in Jackson, Miss. HAMMOND, Samuel Jr., 18, killed Feb. 8, 1968, when highway patrolmen fired on protesters in Orangeburg, S.C. MIDDLETON, Delano, 17, killed Feb. 8, 1968, in the Orangeburg shootings. SMITH, Henry, student killed Feb. 8, 1968, in the Orangeburg shootings. KING, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther Jr., 39, assassinated April 4, 1968 in Memphis.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/04/us/the-40-who-fell-in-the-turbulence-of-the-us-battles-for-civil-rights.html

MEH!!!!!!!!!!!

All I did was share a book title - Sorry . . . Imagine I had written - Bill Maher or John Stewart had written it . . . It's very tongue in cheek. But as a black/mixed race person whose father/family toiled under the repressive regime called Jim Crow - please check your "MLK Would Be Ashamed of You All". I'm so sick and tired of white Americans telling Black folks shit like that!

Ask yourself - why did the well educated former Green Beret married to the white woman move her and his children to Rochester NY in 1978 at the end of his military career - instead of Talladega Alabama? MLK would have been ashamed of that decision too - But we do what we have to do to survive as brown people in America. Then -and now. No different than me vowing to never take my husband to Arizona/New Mexico (he's from Italy - and gives creedence to your point that if it happens it will happen somewhere from out West) because truthfully?

His olive skin and accent will make him a target for ignorance. Papers Please! Say it again! PAPERS PLEASE!

It's okay to be angry and upset at the CONCEPT - but don't just say - Well folks - you have nothing to be concerned about here.

We do - and I don't think I've seen so much racial polarity in my 39 years as I have the last 4. Just for food for thought that you might want to taste. Actually - we went down for a family visit in 1978 and ran into a little bit of trouble in a Dairy Queen - I.E. My mom wanting us to sit down inside. What's that about 'We've moved past that and remember.' Because I don't see much difference in this country between 1978 (hooooooooooow many years after MLK was shot???) and now.

I truly hope you are right Are_grits - I really truly hope you are right. But I see one hell of an ugly country. Truthfully? We suck on this issue. We just suck.

We cant just let em go for free. But on 2nd thought ...........

They make it up to suit their agenda

No one takes this shit seriously. Southern secessionists can be safely ignored (except maybe by the cops for criminal behavior)

....Just guessing, but you appear to have forgotten the following rather interesting remarks from Governor Perry of Texas in 2009:

"You know, my hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We’ve got a great union. There is absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what may come out of that? But Texas is a very unique place and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot."

What should we read into that? Nobody took the South seriously in the 1840s-1850s until 1861, when it was much too late for talk. My point is you have to take these kinds of remarks seriously enough to understand where they're coming from and to know how to minimize them, otherwise you just repeat previous mistakes.

Having lived in the Deep South for 22 years, I can tell you for a fact that the secession concept is not limited to those struggling to hold down a job in a job-poor economy. It cuts across all levels from the very wealthy to the dirt-poor, from business owners to those getting unemployment checks. Bad economies tend to stir up political unrest, and the US is no exception to the rule. Additionally, quite a few folks down here are still fighting the US Civil War 147 years after the end of the conflict and 135 years after the end of the US military occupation. The resentment toward Northerners and the Federal Government is still very real.

No, they took them seriously.

Compromise after compromise, they took them seriously. The runaway slave act, the Missouri compromise, bleeding Kansas.*

Every president during those years southerner, had sympathies toward the south, or owned slaves.

The south didn't get their way in 1860, and acted like children. And they've continued to do it for 200 years now.

Now they do it through a surrogate, the Republican party.

Someday we'll have to say enough is enough.

* my source, "The Impending Crisis 1848-1861," David M. Potter. "Free Labor, Free men, Free Soil," Eric Foner

http://www.amazon.com/Impending-Crisis-1848-1861-David-Potter/dp/0061319295
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Soil-Labor-Men-Introductory/dp/0195094972

...appreciate the history refresher, but I graduated with a degree in History.

By the way, what's happening now is not just taking place in the GOP South. Take a look at all of the states who are trying to suppress the vote:

INTERACTIVE MAP: Voter Suppression Efforts By State

What would the Red states (takers) do if the Blue States (Producers) went Gault?

The Red States have been holding this nation back since its inception.

Not to mention the lack of an Internet due to those awful red states "holding the country back since its inception."

The only people that talk of secession, whether they live in blue, red, or purple states, have NO IDEA what it would do to not only their economy but the economy of the world. Are you ready for a global depression?

but lets not let the facts get in the was shall we.

Rocket launches can be done in any place close to the equator.

The well being of New England is more dependent upon Canda then red states

as far as recession you are just guessing.

I'm addressing your asinine statement that the red states have held back this country since its inception. Or are you going to retract that in lieu of facts?

And my "guess" is an educated one. Just look at industry, ports, farmland, wind-power, mineral resources (and more than I care to list) that are located in the South as an example of why destroying the union would be a bad idea for the entire world.

even fought a civil war because of it. so no I willl not retract.

sorry you can't deal with facts and reality,

Here, let me help you:



To make such a bold statement as this tells me that you haven't been paying attention to what's been going on in our country since it started.

Also, I see a big parallel with RW sentiment with regards to this notion that a part of the nation is undeserving of help, and resentment that y'all have to pay anything at all when you don't get an equal amount in return. Sorry, doesn't work that way. We are a union whether you like it or not, and as a "fellow" Liberal, we help all, no matter what they think of it.

I find this exceedingly weird to have to defend our union from someone presumably in a northern (or NW) state from breaking it all up again. You really don't know what you're talking about if you want that to happen.

Look at the Big Picture, as I've been attempting to point with how such a move would affect the economies of the world.

Second:



It's actually more of a resentment that the "takers" are labeling the "givers" as the "takers."

You can try and convince them (the actual "takers" with facts that they are wrong, but in the end, maybe they have to learn their own lesson. it's kind of a "tough love" thing you would like to see, but know will never happen.

or that it would even be possible. Too much crap would have to happen at once for that to even begin to take place. It's a Utopian idea as far as I'm concerned, and not one I share.

Your "givers" and "takers" bit is somewhat confusing, but I think I got it I wouldn't do "tough love" though. I'm more of a "kill 'em with kindness" kind of guy. Conservatives see compassion as a weakness whereas we (normally) embrace it, using it unconditionally, which they also hate

Slavery and the Making of America

....and....

1790 United States Census


My comments: Even though the first African-American slaves were brought to Jamestown colony in Virginia, Massachusetts was the first colony to legalize slavery in 1641. Slavery spread throughout ALL of the American colonies. The US Constitution did not address the issue of slavery when it was adopted in 1787.

brings up secession or some form of dumping the red states, the South in particular. Read a few of the posts in this thread alone. Those are OPs every day.
Or I just got up on the wrong side of the bed. You choose.

stomping your direction?

Not all Southerners were loyal to the Confederacy. A lot of them went to fight for the Union.

is a prime example.

to name another.

being interested in anything that scares off corporations!

didn't want to join the Tidewater traitors. (I always remember that when people on DU start bagging on West Virginia.)

Virginia joined the confederates. Grits makes a good point, if anyone tried to secede a southern state, there would be a fucking bloodbath within that state with neighbor fighting neighbor, sibling fighting sibling.

For example, Missouri had many units that fought for the Confederacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Missouri_Civil_War_Confederate_units

The Southeastern Conference isn't abdicating its chances at those titles any time soon!

Like other similar radicals most of their constituents have no ideas what they say or are advocating in legislation too radical for and ignored by most Republicans. Let them try to succeed and find out what happens in their own borders.

so . . . we run out of oil and the entire economy collapses.

Or significant chunks of the country are laid to waste by a surprise nuclear attack or natural disaster.

Then we would fragment along geographical lines (it's hard to maintain a country this size without modern technology).

Otherwise yeah it's just talk.

remember? North Carolina, South Carolina, nope, I don't remember.



Also it would not just be the old Southern Dominion. You point, rightly, to some western States... I am looking at you Arizona...

Anyhow, anybody thinking this will be the blue and the gray all over again is smoking something really, and I mean this, REALLY strong... and I do not want to partake of it. It won't... I will be nice, I will give the uprising a month before it truly becomes asymmetrical warfare. And I am being nice in that respect.

But some folks are actually itching for a rematch... and they are enough of them to give the rest of us a lot of heart ache.

For the record, civil wars are not civil.

I pointed out the minorities and they weren't a factor. So no, it didn't happen the first time.

But there would be serious problems if those mooks tried it now or do you think these minorities and the whites who agree with them will just watch?

I am talking of a state of being. Some people, not just in the South, want a rematch, for a sundry of reasons.

The civil war, for the record, was not something the MAJORITY wanted in the southern states in 1860 either.

Civil wars, this is a great misunderstanding of the dynamic, do not come from majorities, but come from minorities who feel the only recourse they have left is the ammo box. In that sense, we are reaching a similar, not the same, just similar, condition.

However, the RW nuts aren't the only aggrieved parties. There are enough different groups with pent up frustrations that everybody will be in somebody else's sights. It won't be some walkover by those idiots.

In fact, I have reasons to fear that, since I know what high speed lead does.

But my feeling is that the RW is actually ready to start shit. In fact, we have been having a slow crescendo of violence, which follows the pattern of modern civil wars... so you could say we are in that twilight zone between the cold civil war and the hot civil war.

I expect the organized uprising to last a month, best case (it's a big country after all)... after that... The Troubles in Ireland are probably a good model. That scares me.

But limited to the south? No... my back country has more than that talk too.

Just wondering.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021492482#post55

Yes, I'm ignorant of exactly how many posts Grits needs to make on the same subject. I was hoping for elucidation, mmmm?

Every day, all day.

Me? I collect potato chips that resemble dead celebrities. Got a little shrine going.

You? Well, I think what you do is weird, but whatever.

The OP has a valid point, and your juvenile snark - and you know it was - helps make it.

Actually, I take that back. I'm not seeing a point. it looks like a teenager jabbering on their livejournal about an idea they have, without ever actually giving form or meaning to the idea.

Okay, Grits dislikes the notion of secession and Robert E. Lee. What relevance does this have to any damned thing in the world, other than Grits maybe using the wrong neck-tube when doing tequila shots?

What I see, is another vaguely affronted southerner on DU, shaking their fingers at those of us who have the fucking audacity to not live there, without ever explaining why there's finger-shaking, presumably for no reason other than to clench their own testicles and screech about how oppressed the south is when someone goes "excuse me, but what the fuck are you going on about, and why does it need five threads?"

where my family lives. They can keep their hate and religion and watch how fast people will jump ship when the get the same treatment of Sharia Law only for christains. Watch how fast people will move.

I say we let them so this time and invite the loyal Americans up north. I'm sick of spending my tax dollars subsidizing idiots who call me a socialist.

I for one would welcome it.

The North will use drones. Neater, and it keeps the body count down!

HUH?

There are many groups who do just that as their reason for being.. They glorify the Civil War. Some on one side and some on the other.
Specialized stores selling nothing but Civil War books, Civil War era clothing and paraphernalia. Reenactments, big and small, up the kazoo every year.

The Todd Akin's of Missouri are not near the anomalies we wish they were.