I read an article in a serious magazine a couple of years ago in which it was suggested that the United States has the potential to become another Yugoslavia. I can’t track this article down (I tried) but as far as I remember it talked about secessionism and civil war. If there was any truth in this where would the union/confederate line be drawn this time?
I’m sure that it would be much more difficult for this to happen in the US at the current time…
We all move around so much, that there isn’t a really strong sense of regionalism left in most of the population (hard to hate them damn Yankees if you ARE one!).
Also, it’s hard to get most Americans to care about anything enough to get up from in front of the TV.
I know… I am an American!
BTW: I love the US, and its people… but that doesn’t mean I can’t criticize!
I’m beginning to think that we should just call the election a tie, and give Bush the south and Gore the north.
ducks & runs
Actually, Gore only won in 18 of the 50 states. He only won in the northeast and the western coastal states. Bush won the rest of the west, midwest, south and southeast.
As Astroboy points out, there is no good way to divide the US up into regions.
Actually, Gore won most of the urban areas, Bush most of the rural areas. The suburbs were split.
So we should just wall off all cities above a certain size (100,000 people?), give them to Gore, give Bush the countryside, and let the suburbanites duke it out.
Actually, Joe Garreau, an author/professor, has a theory/book about the Nine Nations of North America. I saw him interviewed in the afterglow of election night on MSNBC. He basically redraws the map of the main 48 states, with some generous helpings from southern Canada and northern Mexico.
Sounds debatable to me. Off to GD.
There has been a lot of comment in the media about anti-government militias. Documentaries on these people are quite common, probably because of the attention focused on them by people like Timothy McVeigh. Aren’t they perceived as any kind of secessionary threat within America? Is that just the belief of foreign filmmakers?
foriegn filmmakers suck:)
Though you might question them as the best predictors of america being foriegn and all.(note foriegns real definition means not from america. Some people might think it means being from another country but thats just unamerican.)
Not a serious one. There are no secessionists in the US who are not justifiably laughed at by the vast majority of the nation.
Sectionalism isn’t, I don’t think, as strong as it once was. My dad was raised in the mountains of South Carolina, went to a Southern Baptist college. Of all people, he should hate yankees, right? Having made money and come from the South, he should be hard core Republican, right?
Fortunately for me, my dad got transferred a lot, and as a result feels very little sectionalism, and is very moderate. It’s not that he feels he’s a yankee so much as he just LIKES 'em so much.
If you extrapolate my father onto the rest of the nation, we’ve nought to worry about.
Where would the lines be drawn if we were to split, though? Well, it wouldn’t be a Union/Confederacy split.
I think that New England would be one section, the old Northwest another, then the southeast, then the southwest (native american nations), Texas would be a separate nation, the upper midwest, the old west, and the far west (California and it’s northern neighbors).
At least, that’s the territories I can make out from general stereotypes.
Most of the West would pretty much stick together. The left coast (Seattle to San Diego) is more or less cohesive, but the Eastern parts of WA, OR, and CA have much more in common with the rest of the West than with their coastal neighbors. Texas might want to finally reclaim their Republic, and Utah might want to establish and independent Zion, but the Southwest hasn’t the clout or the resources to make a go of it on their own. OK, NM, AZ, CO, and eastern CA would IMO be more likely to join with the northern West (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas). Not many people, but a substantial chunk of land, and surprisingly in accord, politically. Sure, there are your bleeding heart bastions, but by and large westerners are slightly conservative states-rightsers.
G. Nome wrote:
A couple of years ago, there was a neo-militia-like group that claimed Texas was never part of the U.S… They called it “The Republic of Texas,” and nominated themselves as its new governing body. I think there were maybe 10 of them, tops – hardly enough to overthrow a small town, let alone pull a State as big as Texas out of the Union.
Well, Texans are ornery folks…
And as for the anti-government militias. They’re good for a laugh, as long as you don’t try to collect taxes from them, the blackguards.
The background information for the game ‘Crimson Skies’ has the U.S. breaking into something like 23 independent nations in the early 1930s. The explanations for this are actually pretty well thought out, as I recall the point which separates the alternate history from our own is another influenza outbreak in the 20s which increases the importance of the border checkpoints between wet and dry states, which then start charging tarrifs and increasing sectionalism, and a low voter turnout which allows a third-party sectionalist President. In 1930 Texas secedes which sets off a domino effect.
FWIW, there are a number of Neo-Confederate web sites out there, though I don’t have any URL’s handy.
The Neo-Con line is basicly that the South has a clearly identifiable Christian culture of its own and deserves at the very least greater autonomy and perhaps even complete independence. They don’t advocate secession or rebellion at this time, but their immediate goal is to promote Southern culture (as defined by the Neo-Cons, of course) and the cause of states’ rights. Secession, by armed force or other means, is at most a very long term goal. They advocate no violent and/or illegal actions for the present and the foreseeable future.
Myself, I think they’re just whistlin’ Dixie. The economic ties alone are a strong inducement to remain in the union. Consider, for example, the millions of Social Security recipients in the South–do you really think they’ll give up those checks for something as abstract as Southern culture and states’ rights? The South also has a large black population which probably will not flock to Confederate banners of war.
I say it ain’t gonna happen.
If you want neo-confederate, neo-secessionist, and/or neo-militia websites, I wholeheartedly recommend the Militia Watchdog’s links page at http://www.militia-watchdog.org/m1.htm.