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Showing Original Post only (View all)Conservative Southern Values Revived: How a Brutal Strain of American Aristocrats Have Come to Rule [View all]
http://www.alternet.org/visions/156071/conservative_southern_values_revived%3A_how_a_brutal_strain_of_american_aristocrats_have_come_to_rule_america_/It's been said that the rich are different than you and me. What most Americans don't know is that they're also quite different from each other, and that which faction is currently running the show ultimately makes a vast difference in the kind of country we are.
Right now, a lot of our problems stem directly from the fact that the wrong sort has finally gotten the upper hand; a particularly brutal and anti-democratic strain of American aristocrat that the other elites have mostly managed to keep away from the levers of power since the Revolution. Worse: this bunch has set a very ugly tone that's corrupted how people with power and money behave in every corner of our culture. Here's what happened, and how it happened, and what it means for America now.
North versus South: Two Definitions of Liberty
Michael Lind first called out the existence of this conflict in his 2006 book, Made In Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics. He argued that much of American history has been characterized by a struggle between two historical factions among the American elite -- and that the election of George W. Bush was a definitive sign that the wrong side was winning.
For most of our history, American economics, culture and politics have been dominated by a New England-based Yankee aristocracy that was rooted in Puritan communitarian values, educated at the Ivies and marinated in an ethic of noblesse oblige (the conviction that those who possess wealth and power are morally bound to use it for the betterment of society). While they've done their share of damage to the notion of democracy in the name of profit (as all financial elites inevitably do), this group has, for the most part, tempered its predatory instincts with a code that valued mass education and human rights; held up public service as both a duty and an honor; and imbued them with the belief that once you made your nut, you had a moral duty to do something positive with it for the betterment of mankind. Your own legacy depended on this.
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Conservative Southern Values Revived: How a Brutal Strain of American Aristocrats Have Come to Rule [View all]
xchrom
Jun 2012
OP
"They hate us for our freedoms" was a bush message that spoke to the evangelicals
Kolesar
Jun 2012
#1
oh yeah, i'm sure bush senior was horrified, absolutely horrified. fucking incubator babies anyone?
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#69
No, I don't really think that has much to do with how many southern conservatives became that way.
antigone382
Jun 2012
#19
"americans" generally are little different from germans, french, mexicans or anyone else. if they
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#70
you don't see it in europe as much because they're more populated than the us -- and because
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#79
people who live in western cities don't personally exploit others (unless they do). what you mean
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#83
collective action has nothing to do with personal shopping choices. and the "average person is
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#85
in general, it's not that significant there either. in france (the country i'm most familiar with)
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#87
i said "on the ascendant". perhaps you haven't been following recent elections. the error is to
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#89
It's not what I or they "know" it's what the hard evidence demonstrates: votes such as the
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#96
As evil as slavery was and is, it is NOT America's original sin. What Europeans
coalition_unwilling
Jul 2012
#114
I understand your point and agree with it. I would merely point out that slavery began
coalition_unwilling
Jul 2012
#119
The southern colonies were founded by Normans seeking to expand the British Empire.
ieoeja
Jun 2012
#23
We had a storm last night...doubt it will do much except raise the humidity.
antigone382
Jul 2012
#110
among the folks extracting profits in appalachia = bouvier ancestors of jackie kennedy.
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#68
And whether the promise was true or not of '40 acres and a mule' the plantations should have been...
freshwest
Jun 2012
#65
If you want to know why the working-class whites prefer "Massa's plantation"
DinahMoeHum
Jun 2012
#7
50,000 "Redleg" Irish Slaves were deported to Barbados by Cromwell from 1649-1660
leveymg
Jun 2012
#44
Odd that they would put WW in that list. He was Southern-born and -raised:
eppur_se_muova
Jun 2012
#47
that should clue us in that the author hasn't taken much trouble with her article. just bs.
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#72
I really take issue with the argument that the problem is the wrong set of elites taking power.
antigone382
Jun 2012
#25
It's easy to be one when you can't drink the water in your own community...
antigone382
Jun 2012
#32
The fundamental premise of the article is that the wrong elites are in power.
antigone382
Jun 2012
#35
looking at the elites in power (the ones who let us see them, at any rate), they seem a pretty
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#75
+1. it's because the northern elites exploited first and exploited more thoroughly that they got
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#73
bush 1 simply had better manners than bush 2; he was every bit as brutal. cia, gulf war,
HiPointDem
Jun 2012
#74
Fantastic post. I love how the bigotry, racism and ignorance of the North are somehow minimized
Number23
Jul 2012
#104
C. Vann Woodward's seminal "The Strange Career of Jim Crow" (1955) notes
coalition_unwilling
Jul 2012
#115
A variation on the "Cowboy Capitalists versus the Eastern Establishment" analysis of the 1960s.
leveymg
Jun 2012
#28
And the irony is that most of them would have been staring at the ass end of a mule from sunup to...
Tom Ripley
Jul 2012
#103
Evangelicals are strongest in Riverside and Orange Counties, altho
coalition_unwilling
Jul 2012
#117