kpete
kpete's JournalHow the South Skews America - We’d be less violent, more mobile & more normal if not for the Dixie.
Minus the South, the rest of the U.S. probably would be more like Canada or Australia or Britain or New Zealand—more secular, more socially liberal, more moderate in the tone of its politics and somewhat more generous in social policy. And it would not be as centralized as France or as social democratic as Sweden.As a fifth-generation Texan, and a descendant of Southerners back to the 1600s, I don’t want to encourage lurid stereotypes of a monolithic South. The states of the former Confederacy include ethnic minorities like Louisiana Cajuns and Texas Germans, along with African Americans. And the dominant conservatives in the South have always been challenged from within the ranks of the white community by populists, liberals and radicals.
But the South really is different from the rest of the country. Here are some examples of how the South skews American statistics.
Today there is more inter-generational social mobility in Europe than in the United States, contrary to the American myth that the United States is still the world’s No. 1 land of opportunity. The Economic Mobility Project of Pew Charitable Trusts has shown that children are far less likely to rise above the socio-economic levels of their parents in the U.S. than are those in Britain, Canada and Australia, as well as Germany, France and the Nordic nations. The American South, with the lowest rates of intergenerational social mobility in the U.S., clearly skews the national statistics, creating an embarrassing and depressing version of American exceptionalism.
Economic inequality? Apart from California and New York, where statistics reflect the wealth of Wall Street, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, the South is the region with the greatest income inequality. Southern exceptionalism has helped to ensure that the American Dream is more likely to be realized in the Old World than in the New.
The mythology of American exceptionalism holds that ever since 1776 the United States has led the rest of the world in expanding individual liberty and the growth of the middle class. This makes for inspiring Fourth of July rhetoric, but it has never been true. In reality, the United States has frequently lagged behind Britain and her other offspring in these areas. Britain peacefully abolished slavery within its empire in the 1830s; thanks to Southern opposition, the U.S. did so only as the result of the catastrophic Civil War. And thanks to mid-century Southern members of Congress, welfare-state policies from home ownership to Social Security were designed to reinforce segregation or exclude the disproportionately-Southern black and white poor. Not until the 1960s, with the help of federal military intervention in Southern states, was the right of African-Americans to vote secured. And today white Southern Republicans are at the forefront of efforts to roll back the voting rights revolution by making voter registration more difficult.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/how-the-south-skews-america-119725.html#ixzz3ewaAbARb
What an incredible, ambitious human experiment. So proud to be a part of it.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.htmlKKK Celebrating July 4th With A Cross Burning, And They Want Folks To Bring The Kids
The KKK website also notes:
“If you have children still living at home we urge you not to neglect this important opportunity to help prepare your children. We will have a wonderful program to help entertain as well as teach them old time values of our forefathers.”
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), not content to celebrate Independence Day with BBQ and fireworks like normal Americans, has decided to have a good old fashioned cross burning on July 4th, and they’re hoping all supporters will bring their children so they can get a leg up on polluting the minds of the next generation.
http://www.liberalamerica.org/2015/07/04/the-kkk-is-celebrating-july-4th-with-a-cross-burning-and-they-want-folks-to-bring-the-kids/
I have a ? for Mr. Trump: Are your clothes made by rapists?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2015/07/03/trump-clothing-line-made-in-china-and-mexico/
"Your Fourth of July is invasions and wars. My Fourth of July is the pure sunbeam of peace."
Your Fourth of July and My Fourth of July
By Juan Cole | Jul. 4, 2015 |
Revised for the 2010s:
Yours is the Confederate flag and nostalgia for the hierarchies of slavery.
Mine is ‘all men are created equal.’
Yours is kowtowing to billionaires in Las Vegas and disregard of public opinion.
Mine is “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”
Yours is profiling and discrimination.
Mine is “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
Yours is “My country right or wrong.”
Mine is avoiding “Offences against the Law of Nations”
Yours is the repeal of universal health care and rejection of Kyoto,
Mine is an America that cares about the wellbeing of our children.
Yours is politicians above the law.
Mine is, with Tom Paine, “in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”
Yours is drone attacks in countries against which we are not at war.
Mine is “and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”
Yours is NSA surveillance of millions of innocents
Mine is the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
Yours is poverty wages and union-busting.
Mine is “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Yours is off-shore drilling, coddling polluters and ‘all of the above energy”
Mine is a stewardship of America the beautiful for succeeding generations.
Yours is the privatization of war and the deployment of whole divisions of “contractors. . .”
Mine is an America where privates do not risk their lives for a tenth of what a mercenary is paid by the Pentagon.
Yours is the criminalization of the people’s protests.
Mine is, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Yours is over 800 military bases around the globe.
Mine is America, the pure sunbeam of peace.
—–
http://www.juancole.com/2015/07/your-fourth-july.html
With apologies to Kahlil Gibran.
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