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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Welcome to Plantation America
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
The premise of this article, in brief, is that the current Culture Wars in America are simply the continuation of the Civil War, which ended but was never really resolved. It is a dispute between Yankee Puritanism, which had one view of liberty and one idea of how society ought to be ordered, and the Southern plantation mentality, which had a different view of liberty and a different view of how society ought to be ordered.
I'm a Southerner born and bred, but there's a lot in this article that resonates for me. I'm not entirely sure it's a Northern/Southern difference; if it once was, surely it isn't any longer. If it were, you'd have to say that Mitt Romney and George W. Bush are Southern, and George Romney and George H. W. Bush are Northern.
That doesn't make much sense to me. It makes more sense to think that there are, among the rich and powerful, some who see themselves as neighbors to other people, and some who see themselves as above other people. And those ideas affect not only the rich and the powerful, but also those who are influenced by them. (Which is to say, just about all of the rest of us.)
So, do you accept the model in the article? If you do, do you think that the Southern Plantation version of society has won? Or that it's winning? If you don't like that version of society (and I don't), what can be done to strengthen other views?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Unreformed
Shipmate
# 17203
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Posted
The North™ and The South™ are no longer meaningful terms. The southern Atlantic coast (banking, education, white collar work) of the south has more in common with the northeast now, and in a way the interior south has more in common with the midwest (manufacturing, blue collar work). Alabama now produces as many cars as Michigan, and Charlotte has the second biggest concentration of banks in the country next to New York.
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In the Latin south the enemies of Christianity often make their position clear by burning a church. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, we don't burn churches; we empty them. --Arnold Lunn, The Third Day
Posts: 246 | From: Richmond, VA | Registered: Jul 2012
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Puritans were powerless by the time of the great Depression. As a northern, Im less expert on suthern aristocracy but I think it was not in power 50 years after the Late Unpleasantness.
Immigrants and the rise of the industrial aristocracy did them both in.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Hmm. I think I tend to agree with you Josephine, that there's truth here in terms of there being different ideologies as to what the wealthy/elite are expected to do with their power.
The author does tend to suggest that the 'Northern' and 'Southern' divide is no longer directly geographical, but I think the idea is that it can still be traced back to those roots, either via patterns of expansion (to the west) or by patterns of education (being educated in 'Northern' institutions).
The Bushes might be an interesting study for whether that holds up, because it basically proposes that Bush Sr was 'Northern' and Bush Jr was 'Southern'. Is there enough difference in their personal histories to back this up, despite them being father and son? If Bush Sr was 'Northern' in outlook, how exactly did he allow his son to be raised 'Southern'?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
It makes more sense to think that there are, among the rich and powerful, some who see themselves as neighbors to other people, and some who see themselves as above other people. And those ideas affect not only the rich and the powerful, but also those who are influenced by them.
And thus it always was (and, I suspect, always will be)
This isn't just a US thing - it's a human and world wide thing. Look in every society and you will see groups and individuals who feel entitled to rule over others. You will also see real care, concern, empathy and great neighbours.
Sometimes the people go against the grain and good thing happen.
Here is an example - happening in my home town.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I accept that this is not my country or culture, but the article strikes me as inflated crap. There are prominent people who have a sense of their accountability. There are others who are in it for themselves. Dressing this up by projecting a specious historical parallel into the present is determinist nonsense.
It also provides an extra excuse, if one were needed for something that seems to be embedded in human nature, to think 'us good - them, socio-genetically, irreversibly bad'.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Second post
It's much the same as a clever, clever, columnist who who attributed the Icelandic financial crash to their being ethically the children of Viking rebels.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Second post
It's much the same as a clever, clever, columnist who who attributed the Icelandic financial crash to their being ethically the children of Viking rebels.
Yeah, or those columns you used to read about the Ceausescu dictatorship, where the writer thought he was adding a lot of historical context by mentioning that Dracula was from Romania.
Or when someone points out that Germans have a word that means "joy in the misery of others". Like, this is supposed to explain Nazism.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
The Bushes might be an interesting study for whether that holds up, because it basically proposes that Bush Sr was 'Northern' and Bush Jr was 'Southern'. Is there enough difference in their personal histories to back this up, despite them being father and son? If Bush Sr was 'Northern' in outlook, how exactly did he allow his son to be raised 'Southern'?
I'm not sure how historical this is, but in the Oliver Stone movie W., there is a scene from the 1988 election, where a group of Moral Majority types ask the elder Bush to make a statement in public to the effect that he'd been "born again"(I'm assuming because for an Episcopalisn, saying you were "born again" could be viewed as implying your original baptism was insufficient). He refuses to do so, and says something to the effect of "Talk to my son, he's the born again one here".
As for how the elder Bush could have "allowed" his son to be raised this way, I think Bush converted to his preferred brand of Christianity as an adult, via 12-Steps programs. So the old man might not have had much to do with it. And W.'s conversion came at a time when the Religious Right was ascendant in American politics, so it probably dovetailed nicely with his career interests.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Sorry, the statement in parentheses in my first paragraph above should be at the end of the paragraph.
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
Ah yes, the Democratic cliche of the Good Republican President. Somewhere in history, there was a Good Republican President, and if only the GOP would get back to that model, we would all be so much better off. Never mind that when that Good Republican President was running for office, we said that he was a dangerous shift to the extreme as compared to the last Good Republican President.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The Bushes might be an interesting study for whether that holds up, because it basically proposes that Bush Sr was 'Northern' and Bush Jr was 'Southern'. Is there enough difference in their personal histories to back this up, despite them being father and son? If Bush Sr was 'Northern' in outlook, how exactly did he allow his son to be raised 'Southern'?
W attended Phillips Academy, Yale, and Harvard. Not that the author thought that was worth mentioning. Hardly allowing your son to be raised "Southern".
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Og wrote:
quote:
Never mind that when that Good Republican President was running for office, we said that he was a dangerous shift to the extreme as compared to the last Good Republican President.
I'm glad someone else has noticed that trend among liberals to romanticize the last generation of conservatives, but only in retrospect.
It's not confined to the US either. I've heard liberals(small and big-L) in Canada talk about Stephen Harper as being a slap in the face to the "Red Tory" values represented by Brian Mulroney. But I remember the Mulroney era, and almost nobody on the left was praising Mulroney as progressive in any way. He was the guy selling us out to the Yanks, via his free-trade agreement, which was the repudiation of everything John Diefenbaker(the last Tory PM of any significance) had supposedly stood for. (In fariness, Dief did actually stand up to the Americans on some key issues, so there were a few real differences in policy between him and Mulroney).
From the UK, I've heard the same sort of praise heaped upon Harold MacMillan and, to a lesser extent, Ted Heath. I've actually heard people interpret Mac's "Never had it so good speech" as somehow left-wing, but I always thought it sounded like something a right-winger would say, along the lines of "Quit your bellyaching you spoiled brats, the government'a already doing a helluva lot for you, so don't ask for more". Apparently, in that speech, he also launched into a direct attack on socialism.
[ 20. July 2012, 18:41: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
W attended Phillips Academy, Yale, and Harvard. Not that the author thought that was worth mentioning. Hardly allowing your son to be raised "Southern".
I've often thought that if Bush II had spent more time in Massachusetts and less in Texas, but still gone on to be president, instead of being stereotyped as a redneck cowboy idiot, he'd be stereotyped as a New England fop idiot. Sorta like Ted Kennedy, minus the social conscience(or at least the way Ted Kennedy was viewed by people who disliked him).
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
I think there's something to it, though the regional divide was never as pronounced as the article implies--those Yankee industrialists were just as brutal in suppressing unions as their Southern plantation counterparts were in suppressing slave revolts. They didn't put on the same degree of aristocratic pretension though, and at least paid lip service to their responsibility to improve society as a whole (as contrasted with private charity to individuals, which is really just another assertion of privilege that strips the beneficiaries of their dignity while enhancing the status of the giver).
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Prester John
Shipmate
# 5502
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
I've often thought that if Bush II had spent more time in Massachusetts and less in Texas, but still gone on to be president, instead of being stereotyped as a redneck cowboy idiot, he'd be stereotyped as a New England fop idiot. Sorta like Ted Kennedy, minus the social conscience(or at least the way Ted Kennedy was viewed by people who disliked him).
I would think someone whose blood was more of a blue hue, such as Kerry, would have been a more appropriate comparison. Although I don't think Kerry was an alcoholic like Bush and Kennedy.
Posts: 884 | From: SF Bay Area | Registered: Feb 2004
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
The article tiptoes around Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Maryland, all slave states but with diverse histories. Kentucky and Maryland were Union states, but it was a close thing to keep them in.
Virginia is a swing state now, the one that Obama needs and Romney needs even more. Both campaigns, I understand, are flooding Virginia with money and ads like it was a swing state. Where's Moo on this?
Romney, though, epitomizes the difference between "Noblesse Oblige" and "Zero-Sum Liberty". His signature achievement as Governor of Massachusetts was Romneycare, which he justified himself with the Puritan view of "Ordered Liberty". He didn't just sign on to the idea, he helped shape it more deeply than that. He was a leader in that case and he had a good record to stand on. There is much about Romneycare/Obamacare that will greatly enhance the freedom of a many people, particularly the poor.
Romney can do Yankee Puritan Noblesse Oblige very well. I'd like to think he even believes it. And he turned his back on that. Coward. Not just a hypocrite, a coward. He's running away from his own legacy and courting the Planter Class in a bid for power. It'd been a long time since a politician was this blatant in public about selling his soul to the devil.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Unreformed
Shipmate
# 17203
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
[qb] Both campaigns, I understand, are flooding Virginia with money and ads like it was a swing state.
And how! I'm already sick of it and the conventions haven't even started.
North Carolina is sort of a swing state now, too. And Florida always has been, if you still want to count that as "South".
[ 20. July 2012, 19:45: Message edited by: Unreformed ]
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In the Latin south the enemies of Christianity often make their position clear by burning a church. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, we don't burn churches; we empty them. --Arnold Lunn, The Third Day
Posts: 246 | From: Richmond, VA | Registered: Jul 2012
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JSwift:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
I've often thought that if Bush II had spent more time in Massachusetts and less in Texas, but still gone on to be president, instead of being stereotyped as a redneck cowboy idiot, he'd be stereotyped as a New England fop idiot. Sorta like Ted Kennedy, minus the social conscience(or at least the way Ted Kennedy was viewed by people who disliked him).
I would think someone whose blood was more of a blue hue, such as Kerry, would have been a more appropriate comparison. Although I don't think Kerry was an alcoholic like Bush and Kennedy.
Yeah, I was thinking of Kennedy's rep as a drunk, dissolute womanizing playboy, with a bad driving record to boot. With Kerry, I believe the worst thing anyone was able to pin on him, as far as being a spoiled-brat scion goes, was that he married money.
But yes. Ted's generation of Kennedys weren't really blue-blooded, in the way that the term is generally understood. Still, probably about as close to being that as you can be while still qualifying as nouveau riche.
Timothy wrote:
quote:
I think there's something to it, though the regional divide was never as pronounced as the article implies--those Yankee industrialists were just as brutal in suppressing unions as their Southern plantation counterparts were in suppressing slave revolts.
And since the article is focussed, at least nominally, on the culture wars, it wasn't southern planters who got the phrase Banned In Boston entered into the political lexicon.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Mere Nick
Shipmate
# 11827
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
So, do you accept the model in the article?
Not really.
quote:
do you think that the Southern Plantation version of society has won? Or that it's winning?
I certainly thought it had won when we had the Pelosi-Reid-Obama triumvirate. They certainly appear to look at us as field hands with DC being the Big House.
quote:
If you don't like that version of society (and I don't), what can be done to strengthen other views?
It seems the best one can do is to actually live that other view in your relationship with others.
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"Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward."
Delmar O'Donnell
Posts: 2797 | From: West Carolina | Registered: Sep 2006
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
I'm glad someone else has noticed that trend among liberals to romanticize the last generation of conservatives, but only in retrospect.
You're absolutely right -- conservatives have always been a carbuncle on the ass of history, and it's good of you to point that out.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
[qb] Both campaigns, I understand, are flooding Virginia with money and ads like it was a swing state.
And how! I'm already sick of it and the conventions haven't even started.
North Carolina is sort of a swing state now, too. And Florida always has been, if you still want to count that as "South".
I thought that was the case, and it was mentioned in several articles on US politics I have seen. I imagine you have to look out the window before heading outdoors to see if there are any canvassers about and carry an umbrella for the rain of election funds. A Tivo would be pretty handy at this time too.
I don't count Floria as "Southern" anymore and I don't think any serious political analyst of any stripe does either. It's Ohio with alligators.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Unreformed
Shipmate
# 17203
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
[qb] Both campaigns, I understand, are flooding Virginia with money and ads like it was a swing state.
And how! I'm already sick of it and the conventions haven't even started.
North Carolina is sort of a swing state now, too. And Florida always has been, if you still want to count that as "South".
I thought that was the case, and it was mentioned in several articles on US politics I have seen. I imagine you have to look out the window before heading outdoors to see if there are any canvassers about and carry an umbrella for the rain of election funds. A Tivo would be pretty handy at this time too.
I don't count Floria as "Southern" anymore and I don't think any serious political analyst of any stripe does either. It's Ohio with alligators.
The strange thing is, I actually don't watch that much TV and I'm STILL sick of it. Even getting rid of the TV in my apartment, something I've long considered, might not help that much. See, because of my IP address which says I'm in a swing area of a swing state, every other ad online is political, too, and 80% of the advertisements that play on YouTube videos are election ads now.
As to Florida, it depends on which part you're talking about. The northern part is like Alabama, the middle is like New Jersey, and the southern part is essentially a Caribbean country that happens to be attached to the United States. That's why it's such a swing state.
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In the Latin south the enemies of Christianity often make their position clear by burning a church. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, we don't burn churches; we empty them. --Arnold Lunn, The Third Day
Posts: 246 | From: Richmond, VA | Registered: Jul 2012
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
ISTM that the voting patterns for President in 2004 mirrored the equivalent patterns of 1860 almost exactly, except for those states that weren't defined clearly in 1860.
I did see a map that showed this, but I seem to have lost the link.
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
That would be impossible, because the 1860 Election featured a four way race, and each candidate won at least one state.
Election Article & Map
There is a North/South divide, then as now, but Florida no longer votes with the "Solid South". The biggest upset of the last election cycle and the present one is that Virginia, with 14 Electoral College votes, has moved from being a solid Republican lock to being a contestable swing state. As I understand it, it's a mix between Virginia becoming more urban and moderate and the entire group of issues that bear the heading "Race".
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Unreformed
Shipmate
# 17203
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
That would be impossible, because the 1860 Election featured a four way race, and each candidate won at least one state.
Election Article & Map
There is a North/South divide, then as now, but Florida no longer votes with the "Solid South". The biggest upset of the last election cycle and the present one is that Virginia, with 14 Electoral College votes, has moved from being a solid Republican lock to being a contestable swing state. As I understand it, it's a mix between Virginia becoming more urban and moderate and the entire group of issues that bear the heading "Race".
Virginia also has an excellent economy compared to the rest of the country so we're much less likely to have bad feelings towards Obama because of economic issues.
If James Madison hadn't persuaded Hamilton to accept a permanent capital on the Potomac River in exchange for a deal on the federal debt, Virginia would be Kentucky with a coastline.
[ 21. July 2012, 01:52: Message edited by: Unreformed ]
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In the Latin south the enemies of Christianity often make their position clear by burning a church. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, we don't burn churches; we empty them. --Arnold Lunn, The Third Day
Posts: 246 | From: Richmond, VA | Registered: Jul 2012
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
I'm glad someone else has noticed that trend among liberals to romanticize the last generation of conservatives, but only in retrospect.
You're absolutely right -- conservatives have always been a carbuncle on the ass of history, and it's good of you to point that out.
--Tom Clune
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
The premise of this article, in brief, is that the current Culture Wars in America are simply the continuation of the Civil War, which ended but was never really resolved.
Hmmm. I can't comment on current political positioning, but it seems to me that the article cited tips right over into lurid stereotyping. No doubt there is (was) some basis for those assertions, but if you take the worst of one side and contrast it with the best of the other, then there is only one possible outcome. But putting that aside for one minute -
The main problem with the thesis, I guess, is the observation that the earliest manifestations of the culture wars were long before the civil war, and they were in the north. The historian James Morone points out that the puritan heritage of America (as opposed to anywhere else) involved the desire to pursue not just the pure church but also a pure society based on that church. And it rapidly came unstitched. Whilst it would be anachronistic to label the sides as conservative and liberal, they certainly divided along the social vs. doctrinal lines and the old dividing lines seem to be very persistent.
Perhaps if you wanted to include the south, you might say that the south had to realign its thoughts into the regnant framework already provided by the north, and that took years. But positing a crude vision of an Augustinian Pastor Snow-White as typical of a far more complex and conflicted history of American puritanism seems highly prejudicial.
Indeed, Morone's magnum opus on this is entitled "Hellfire Nation - The Politics of Sin in American History", and that article is nothing if not an attempt to paint one side in the blackest of sinful terms. And it is precisely this sort of bipolar, black and white rhetoric that simply keeps the whole culture war on the road. Both sides do it. The natural human reaction to it is to become defensive and return fire. As I've said before, the net result is a sort of perpetual mutually-reinforcing moral panic.
And like all such stereotyping, it fails to address the writer's own part in perpetuating the very mindset that stokes the fires of other culture warriors of every stripe.
The classic interpretation of explanations that harp on and on about the wickedness of the other is to ask if they might not be more than a little bit an exercise in projection.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
The article to which the OP makes reference reads like an oversimplified version of David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed, which postulates four,, not two, basic divisions. So I think there's something to it, but it's a little too schematic and binary.
Hackett Fischer would see the article's notion of "zero-sum liberty" as characteristic of the "Borderers," the "Scotch-Irish" who settled Appalachia in the days when it was the West.
They, however, are only one of two Southern cultural groups. The other, the planter class of Virginia, his "Cavaliers," tended to cultivate a form of intensive Stoical self-discipline that awed onlookers, as George Washington was said to do. However, their ethical self-culture was based on the presumption of a hierarchical society whose upper levels lived by an honor code foreign to middle-class, artisan-oriented New England. The planter class thought it was earning the deference it expected from others by living up to the intense demands of its own honor code.
The two Southern cultures in Hackett-Fisher are thus quite different. "Borderers" believe liberty consists in being able to act without any restrictions on one's own conduct. They imagine these restrictions as always proceeding from others; they don't discipline themselves. They are impatient of any restraint whatever on their liberty. The "Cavaliers" are intensely self-disciplined but expect deference, not interference, from those below them in the social scale.
Their are two "Northern" groups, also, according to Hackett-Fischer, though his Pennsylvania group strikes me as something of a hodgepodge, a convenient place to locate the origins of the Marlo Thomas strain of nice, Fair-Trading, Montessori-attending, ethnic-stole-wearing liberalism, "free to be you and me."
New Englanders, on the other hand, may be communitarians, but they aren't nice about it, in Hackett-Fischer's view. They know what is best for your and generally have no problems telling you exactly what it is. The New England influence runs through a certain strain of American Progressivism, the one we prefer not to think about, that gave us Prohibition, and eugenics, and "Banned in Boston" style censorship, and had no problems with displacing the poor people of midtown Manhattan to build Central Park.
I'm pretty fond of Hackett Fisher's book, though I think there are probably more divisions than his four. He also entirely ignores later immigration, deriving his folkways entirely from America before 1800. Surely Hispanic immigration has had an impact on Florida and the West? And Central European immigration had an enormous impact on the industrial southern Great Lakes, as Nordic immigration did on Minnesota, North Dakota, and parts of Wisconsin.
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
... It's not confined to the US either. I've heard liberals(small and big-L) in Canada talk about Stephen Harper as being a slap in the face to the "Red Tory" values represented by Brian Mulroney. But I remember the Mulroney era, and almost nobody on the left was praising Mulroney as progressive in any way. He was the guy selling us out to the Yanks, via his free-trade agreement, which was the repudiation of everything John Diefenbaker(the last Tory PM of any significance) had supposedly stood for. (In fariness, Dief did actually stand up to the Americans on some key issues, so there were a few real differences in policy between him and Mulroney). ....
You're remembering correctly. The Red Tories were the Joe Clark Tories, not the Mulroney Tories. The Harper Tories are Preston Manning's Reform / Alliance TINOs. OliviaG
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
I'm still not particularly enamoured of MUlroney, but TBF I would like to point out his role in dealing with apartheid in SA, and his apology to the Japanese interned during WW2, which included a formal compensation package and various other efforts to deal with the problem.
Harper isn't even brave enough to say "Of course I'm not going to deal with the natives, even if I did apaologise to them. My base vote is too racist to stand for that"
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
I think Grammatica has laid it out pretty well--though there's always room for more nuance. Mark Twain said that the problem with the Southern upper class was that they'd spent too much time reading Sir Walter Scott. The problem with the Northern upper class may be that they spent too much time reading Jonathan Edwards.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
I'm still not particularly enamoured of MUlroney, but TBF I would like to point out his role in dealing with apartheid in SA, and his apology to the Japanese interned during WW2, which included a formal compensation package and various other efforts to deal with the problem.
Very true. Though I should say that I rarely if ever heard progressives praising Mulroney for any of that stuff when he was in office.
So, maybe it's the case that previous generations of Tories were relatively enlightened, but nobody was noticing it at the time.
Olivia wrote:
quote:
You're remembering correctly. The Red Tories were the Joe Clark Tories, not the Mulroney Tories.
The strange thing is, I used to hear the phrase "Red Tory" applied to the people who ousted Diefenbaker(Dalton Camp, Robert Stanfield etc) in such a way as to make it sound as if they were ideologically distinct from him. But then later on, I heard the term applied to Dief himself.
re: Clark/Mulroney. Of course, Clark did serve with Mulroney, and we can assume, supported most of the policies, left, right, or otherwise, that Mulroney did. But you're right, as far as the period from about the mid-70s to the late 90s is concerned, Joe Clark was the definitive Red Tory.
All this was played out again in the recent Alberta election, with Clark-protege Alison Redford supposedly hoisting the Red flag against the Manningites in Wildrose. Some have talked about her election as a leftward shift in Alberta politics, when actually, she is probably to the right of Peter Lougheed.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
Morris Berman would probably respond that the author was correct in perceiving a long-standing clash between Southern and Northern cultures, but that he got things backwards from there. In Why America Failed, The villain is the Yankee obsession with commercializing everything (his word: hustling); and this mind-set is now virtually unchallenged.
Tto quote from an Amazon comment)"Berman writes 'In contrast to the zeal for money that characterized the North, the South was guided by ideals of honor, courage, amiability, and courtesy.' This of course is recognizable everywhere in America today, right?"
Although Berman was careful to distance himself from sympathy with slavery, he has been derided by critics who have no patience with ambiguities: for them, a society with slaveowners has no redeeming features. End of discussion. Ms. Robinson strikes me as characteristic.
She forgot to mention Jay Gould et al., or the Gatling guns mounted on rooftops and fired by union busters. Is anything Southern about them?
Or that Jimmy Carter is a southerner, as well as the last President to make the correct social diagnosis and attempt forlornly to steer the nation towards a better course.
Morris Berman may be a sourpuss sometimes, but he is a far more consummate historian.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
From Grammatica:
"Their are two "Northern" groups, also, according to Hackett-Fischer, though his Pennsylvania group strikes me as something of a hodgepodge, a convenient place to locate the origins of the Marlo Thomas strain of nice, Fair-Trading, Montessori-attending, ethnic-stole-wearing liberalism, "free to be you and me."
New Englanders, on the other hand, may be communitarians, but they aren't nice about it, in Hackett-Fischer's view. They know what is best for your and generally have no problems telling you exactly what it is. The New England influence runs through a certain strain of American Progressivism, the one we prefer not to think about, that gave us Prohibition, and eugenics, and "Banned in Boston" style censorship, and had no problems with displacing the poor people of midtown Manhattan to build Central Park."
All too often, those in the first group, while espousing the values set out, then take the approach that they know what is best for you, and tell you what that is.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
Well, considering I learned within the past week of the Neo-Confederacy movement in the United States-- that is, people who want to bring back slavery in an organized fashion-- I'm going to go with no.
(Of course the gentlemen, and I'm using the term in the loosest possible sense, wouldn't be the *slaves* in their proposed system, nope. Oh, and they're based in Idaho.)
Warning: the following link opens up with a photo of a man's scarred back. The link.
[ 24. July 2012, 04:45: Message edited by: Spiffy ]
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Looking for a simple solution to all life's problems? We are proud to present obstinate denial. Accept no substitute. Accept nothing.
--Night Vale Radio Twitter Account
Posts: 10281 | From: Beervana | Registered: Dec 2003
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
Morris Berman would probably respond that the author was correct in perceiving a long-standing clash between Southern and Northern cultures, but that he got things backwards from there. In Why America Failed, The villain is the Yankee obsession with commercializing everything (his word: hustling); and this mind-set is now virtually unchallenged.
...
Morris Berman may be a sourpuss sometimes, but he is a far more consummate historian.
No, he's an idiot. Given that virtually every slave who could do so escaped to the North and virtually none of the Northerners "escaped" to the South, Berman's thesis is bogus on its face. The huge difference is that the Northern workers had within their means the ability to change the injustices that they were subjected to (however difficult it might have been), while the slaves had no such possibility. This really isn't a difficult point to grasp if you try.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Bean Sidhe
Shipmate
# 11823
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Posted
There was recently a BBC documentary making a similar argument about the legacy of the English civil war in the 17th century, between Cavaliers (royalist, keen on aristocracy and the divine right of kings, often flamboyant and hedonistic) and Roundheads (parliamentarians, anti-monarchist, puritan, keen on state control). The premiss of that programme was that this division is alive and active today, in politics but also in most areas of life.
I think that's probably true, and the division probably long preceded the civil war. That's just when it became sufficiently intense to erupt into conflict.
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How do you know when a politician is lying?
His lips are moving.
Danny DeVito
Posts: 4363 | From: where the taxis won't go | Registered: Sep 2006
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
@Bean
1066 And All That put it best:
Roundheads - Right but repulsive.
Cavaliers - Wrong but romantic.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
none of the Northerners "escaped" to the South,
Were the carpetbaggers just a myth, then?
quote:
Berman's thesis is bogus on its face.
Have you read it?
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
none of the Northerners "escaped" to the South,
Were the carpetbaggers just a myth, then?
You can't seriously be equating predator and victim.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
Of course not. The predators were worse. From the North they came to do what Northerners were so good at.
[ 25. July 2012, 22:51: Message edited by: Alogon ]
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
This article seems to fit into the broad contours of the thread topic, so I'll post it here.
Pomney aide says Obama not pro-British enough
The quoted remarks sound so outrageous, on any number of levels, I'm half-wondering if the anonymous aide in question is actually an Obama plant.
I'm not an expert on US public opinion, but these comments don't sound calculated to appeal to American patriotism. I mean, the guy complains that Obama wouldn't like singing Land Of Hope And Glory?? What next?
"And lemme tell ya, this guy Obama would probably have been cheering for George Washington in the Revolutionary War!"
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
Do you think that Romney & Co., being on such good terms with British officials as he claims or hopes, will relax enough with them to share some of his favorite music? That could be a telling revelation of character, especially with someone who could easily afford anything he might choose his entire life. Competent diplomats are extremely observant and will miss no clues.
When the G.W. Bush crowd first showed up in London, their hosts were absolutely appalled by the crassness they observed. They quickly yearned for an encore from the saxophonist.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Olde Sea Dog
Shipmate
# 13061
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Posted
The article is interesting, but it fails to show how planter elitism and control transitioned to the current grassroots conservativism that lower and middle class Southerners are embracing with whole-hearted abandon. It's not being imposed on them by an elite, rather Bubba and Cletus are voting against their own interests enthusiastically, as documented by the book Deer Hunting With Jesus a few years ago. If you wander into a Southern bar and praise the unions that brought healthcare, safe working conditions, and a decent wage - you risk getting run out of town.
Propaganda yes (such as Rush Limbaugh), but they can't get enough of it.
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Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Posts: 67 | From: The C of Consciousness - California | Registered: Oct 2007
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Bob Dylan explained it in 1963:
quote:
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
Some things haven't changed that much.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
Ah yes, the Democratic cliche of the Good Republican President. Somewhere in history, there was a Good Republican President, and if only the GOP would get back to that model, we would all be so much better off. Never mind that when that Good Republican President was running for office, we said that he was a dangerous shift to the extreme as compared to the last Good Republican President.
I don't know. I've heard good things about Teddy Roseveldt. And Lincoln was the right man for an impossible job. I can't, of course, name any good Republican presidents before Lincoln and he was in a way a bit of an extremist.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
I can't, of course, name any good Republican presidents before Lincoln...
There's a very good reason for that...
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
Morris Berman would probably respond that the author was correct in perceiving a long-standing clash between Southern and Northern cultures, but that he got things backwards from there. In Why America Failed, The villain is the Yankee obsession with commercializing everything (his word: hustling); and this mind-set is now virtually unchallenged.
Tto quote from an Amazon comment)"Berman writes 'In contrast to the zeal for money that characterized the North, the South was guided by ideals of honor, courage, amiability, and courtesy.' This of course is recognizable everywhere in America today, right?"
...he applied the virtues of courtesy, amiability, and honour to a bunch of slave owners. This is risible. The virtues he is praising are that the Southern Aristocracy was polite to people they considered as equals. And even turned condescension into a virtue.
If you were a slave owner you were de facto absolutely discourteous to the people you owned. You were so discourteous that it is impossible to cite courteousness as one of your virtues. If you would own people and literally force them to work (as slaveowners did) you were so lacking in amiability as to render the amiability towards the small group you considered your own kind moot.
This doesn't mean you can't have virtues while owning slaves. Bravery is entirely possible. So, arguably, is honour. But to talk about courtesy and amiability as being virtues of people who literally treated other people as animals is simply sick and twisted.
quote:
She forgot to mention Jay Gould et al., or the Gatling guns mounted on rooftops and fired by union busters. Is anything Southern about them?
No idea. I don't think anyone ever said that any group of aristocrats was angels - if you behave like angels you don't remain in the aristocracy. Merely that the sort of scum who would lead an armed rebellion and four year long civil war in an attempt to preserve their "right" to treat human beings as livestock really aren't good people.
You are pointing to incidents. Not the way of life of the entire aristocracy, that they were literally willing to go to war for.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
This article seems to fit into the broad contours of the thread topic, so I'll post it here.
Pomney aide says Obama not pro-British enough
The quoted remarks sound so outrageous, on any number of levels, I'm half-wondering if the anonymous aide in question is actually an Obama plant.
I'm not an expert on US public opinion, but these comments don't sound calculated to appeal to American patriotism. I mean, the guy complains that Obama wouldn't like singing Land Of Hope And Glory?? What next?
"And lemme tell ya, this guy Obama would probably have been cheering for George Washington in the Revolutionary War!"
This isn't at all what that quote means. Saying Obama doesn't understand "Anglo-Saxon heritage" means "Obama is black and therefore not one of us." It's meant to appeal to American racism just as much as George H. W. Bush's Willy Horton ads did.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
This isn't at all what that quote means. Saying Obama doesn't understand "Anglo-Saxon heritage" means "Obama is black and therefore not one of us."
Well, as a dog-whistle, that's what the quote would mean. But, taken literally, he does seem to have been referring to Obama's affestion, or lack thereof, for the UK.
And I guess I wasn't sure if it was meant as a dog-whistle or not. There is a faction within American conservatism who do sincerely worship the Anglo-Saxon heritage, and in such a way that doesn't really seem to be marketted at hoi poloi as a code(I doubt too many people outside of elite media and their audience are gonna read that book, for example).
And is "He's not Anglo-Saxon" really something you'd say in this day and age to whip up racism against someone? With Obama, I'd think the more useful code words would be "not Christian" or "affirmative action baby" or the tried-and-true "Where's the birth certificate?"
My own take on the quote was that the aide probably was the kind of from-afar anglophile who thinks that British people all walk around in bowler hats and brollies humming Land Of Hope And Glory, and that reporters for a conservative British paper would be appalled to hear that Obama isn't like that.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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