The South has risen again?

When I was a young buck, I decided to relinquish my cushy life in the northeast for the exploration of southern accents and sunny weather in Clemson, S.C. Needless to say, the culture shock was intense.

Probably one of the biggest surprises was that the Civil War, for most of the country a relic of the history books, is very much alive in the Southern tribal culture. While the north (and most of the country) has generally forgotten this deep division in our historical narrative, a very real and palpable sense of anger and oppression has persevered throughout the generations in the lower eastern seaboard.

This schism is not simply among the wack-job pro-slavery crowd, and is certainly not to be underestimated. I am reminded of the Aztechs (or was it the Mayans or Incans?) who were conquered by the Spanish so very long ago. Inferior in weaponry, a military defeat was inevitable. But the culture persevered and after a few generations, the Spanish conquistadors had been assimilated into the pre-existing culture. In the long-term, it was a spectacular nonviolent defeat of the Spanish.

I see the same movement happing in the U.S. in the rise of the Bush administration. The South will rise again is no longer a hick flight of fancy but has assumed at least the façade of reality. By waiting patiently, keeping the culture alive, and spreading their ideology through Talk Radio, etc., the south has effectively assumed control of this country through the cooperation of the BushCo administration.

As if to prove my point, this website has a line-by-line comparison [1] of the Confederate States of America and the current United States. It’s pretty eerie stuff. But moreover, I think it is a lesson to us all that humiliating defeats live on in the psyche of the subjugated long after fading from the victors memory. Solutions that employ the rule of force-power alone will never do more than exacerbate the problem in the long-term.

Still don’t believe me? Well just take a look at this past week. The GOP congress killed the vote [2] to renew the Voting Rights Act [3] of 1965, a critical piece of legislation targeting areas (in the South) that have a notoriously [4] poor civil rights [5] record. Is there really any question towards whose value system Republicans are campaigning [6]?

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