Cultural Confederacies

Have you ever wondered that maybe, just maybe things are breaking down at an accelerating rate? If so, maybe we have to stop trying to fix a broken system and start over with a brand new one?

Yeah, I know, this is supposed to be a bolg from the less established press, but I have to hand it to mainstream's Maureen Dowd in the Sunday Times “Boy oh Boy” who got it just about right. The Tea Parties, and the Town Halls the kerfluffel over the President addressing school children are really about one thing, and one thing only. This is all about a big part of the country’s inability to deal with a black guy as President.

I should learn to post faster. This morning, as I am about to put this up, I hear that Jimmy Carter says the same thing, (Yay Jimmy!) so at least it is out there with a bigger microphone than I can muster. The problem is, will we just wring our hands at the awfulness of it all or will we start thinking of new ways of dealing with the issues.

Maybe its time to admit that we should not be living in the same country as these folks who will have no compromise or reason in their position. As William Faulkner reminded us about the South; "The past is never dead. It's not even past." The Confederacy has been waiting 145 years to rise again, and this time, my friends, I suggest we let them.

Really, If the South wants to have their own barbaric way free from the controls of our central government, its time to let them go. The same goes for all those survivalist Libertarians in the Mountain states and Southwest. They can go too.

If anyone in the putative leadership of this country were willing to have an honest navel gaze, I suspect they might admit that the USA, as now constituted, is ungovernable. We have three hundred million rugged individuas divided by a common language. I think its time to redraw the maps and start over.

Let me suggest that we are really five countries sandwiched between Canada and Mexico. If so, the only way we can avoid a future of chaotic civil wars is by ending the fiction that out of the many we can make one. We no longer have a frontier where those who feel constrained by others can go, and, as a body politic, we are obviously not making decisions based on the best interests of the majority. Our divisions are deep, pervasive and arguably unbridgeable. It is time for the waring regions to declare irreparable differences and agree to an amicable divorce.

We need to recognize that we can only create civil societies with those who share our ideas of civility. Nobody can humanely live in a country in which another culture is constantly trying to impose its reality on them, or vice versa. And thats where we are in America right now.

Personally, I no longer think it is possible work out plausible compromises on major public issues with people who shout down dissenting opinions while believing that the force of arms and the symbol of the cross must subsume the force of diverse ideas and disparate culture. This is a prescription for disaster.

For the sake of argument, let me suggest that we would all be better off if we broke up America into 5 separate countries of about 60 million people each. Those new regional countries would then share relatively common cultures. They might choose to bond with their neighboring confederacies for common defense and trade purposes, much as Europe bonds together in the EU. However, each country would maintain its unique government, culture, self organization.

I have been working on this idea since "W" won in ’04 with a campaign of division and regional animosity. It seemed, at the time, that we had reached a moment when the ideal of bridging our national divides was no longer possible. The events of the past few months with the politics of hate and fear blooming in certain regions have caused me to pull out this idea and dust if off for reconsideration. It is still in formation and will require a lot more in the near future. But, I figured that this was as good a time as any to float it again.

Part of the concept arises from the idea that we can no longer manage the level of complexity required to keep the whole US show running. For a while, I have been fascinated with the concept of complexity theory and the work of Joseph Tainter which basically says that complex societies tend to get more complex until they can no longer manage things, whence they collapse. The Oil Drum has an interesting post in that regard Excerpts from "Peak Civilization: The Fall of the Roman Empire" Posted by Ugo Bardi In this exploration he cites Tainter’s work and the old Club of Rome, Limits to Growth ideas.

Remember the poor Club of Rome. They were right about the limits to growth, but because they weren’t right about the limits being felt in the 1970s, their work was discounted forever. Looks like we are now getting a cultural lesson in the downsides of unfettered growth. The damn machine gets overheated, and we all bounce around like drops of water on a hot skillet.

Right now it feels like the complex machine which is our abundant economy is melting down, burning up and thrashing about inflicting havoc upon many other countries. Our inability to respond to the challenges of the melting environment, chaotic social organization of services, imperial overreach, and economic madness suggests that we have reached the end of our rope and that end is unraveling quickly.

All of this seems to happen with a backdrop of the possible decline of Industrial culture. I was directed by the Arch Druid to an interesting discussion in last week’s Guardian: Is there any point in fighting to stave off industrial apocalypse? In it, Two British intellectuals, Paul Kingsnorth. and George Monbiot argue whether the collapse of civilisation will bring us a saner world.

Admittedly, this seems a diversion from the opening theme of proposing the dis-unification of the American state. Let me bring it back around by suggesting that we are exacerbating the current disfunction in so many of our system by maintaining the illusion that we can continue to bridge our differences. This whole stew of rapid dislocation of the American prospect seems to cross a lot of boundaries. Its really scary seeing how large systems fail, how problems get intertwined and culture creates the ability or inability to respond to large issues forces one to bust one's brain in order to try to figure out a way to see a humanistic solution to the coming disruptions. That brain bust seems to get soothed by the elegance of Small is Beautiful and the notions that appropriate levels of decision making will help all our comfort levels. Is it any wonder then why the idea of downsizing America has an appeal?

Everywhere we are hearing the demand that we need to downsize and downscale the government. A lot of people seem to want their taxes cut along with governmental intrusion in their lives. It seems to me that this shrinkage can either be done by cutting the cojones off the safety net, or, as I would propose, cutting up the country into nations of mare manageable size and common purpose.

On the face of it, one could suspect that a country of 60 million people has to be less complex than a country of 300 million. Moreover, it seems like other countries of about 60 million like France, or Germany or England manage to maintain public health systems, education systems and often even a vibrant economies (though that is a tough pitch for any industrial economy right now).

Dividing up the good ol' US of A into 5 countries each of about 60 million people would make each new country comparable to the many of the best economies in the world. Not only would the size be more manageable the economy viable but, done right, each of these new subdivisions will also have a lot more internal cultural cohesion than the current mess. I have even been thinking about calling these newly formed countries “Cultural Confederacies” because it is possible with greater internal cultural cohesion they could then make their own laws that would better reflect the will of the governed.

Think about it. If you took New England, New York and New Jersey you would have a "nice" country of about 60 million, with a common history of commerce and intellectualism. Call it Yankeeland, . The same would hold true if you combined Northern California, Oregon and Washington into Ecotopia. Imagine the joy in the Old South if Dixie no longer had the damn Yankees telling them what to do. All those Christian Farmers in the Midwest could join with their fellows in the mountain states and deserts down to Los Angeles for to create Libertariana. Finally, the solid industrial heartland from Pennsylvania to Minnesota could form a well Unionized Union.

In five quick radical regionectomies, the newly reduced body politic could have their dreams of less government fulfilled. Within this new division, if those in Dixie wanted to outlaw abortion, and make the 10 Commandments part of their constitution, they could just do it. They could make faith healing a covered benefit in their health care system. Hell, it could be the whole system. The rest of us wouldn’t have to care. Of course when the regional refugees wanted into our new "Socialized" system, we might have to worry about illegal immigrants, but that is a ways off yet.

Obviously there are lots of organizational considerations needed to complete the picture of such a new political geography. I intend to start addressing them in future posts. But I wanted to get the essence of the idea up now, because dammit, its time for some new ideas. So I figured I would put this out there for those of you who take the time to read this. Maybe you will then offer your own suggestions, critiques and refinements.

Its just that we seem to have a lot of work to do right now to fix the world and the awful inequities building up. That work won't get done in the political system as now constituted. So I figure its worth presenting alternative ideas to try to focus our attention on ways out of the current paralysis.

In recognizing the scope of work we have ahead, I would also like to tip my hat to Jim Kuntsler, who did a wonderful job in his current post Reality Receding. He lays out the real tasks at hand for the near future. I think it would be easier to address this list in a re-organized American continent, but for the hell of it, I will end by just reprinting his run on laundry list.

we have to rescale the activities of daily life to a level consistent with the mandates of the future, especially the ones having to do with available energy and capital. We have to dismantle things that have no future and rebuild things that will allow daily life to function. We have to say goodbye to big box shopping and rebuild Main Street. More people will be needed to work in farming and fewer in tourism, public relations, gambling, and party planning. We have to make some basic useful products in this country again. We have to systematically decommission suburbia and reactivate our small towns and small cities. We have to prepare for the contraction of our large cities. We have to let the sun set on Happy Motoring and rebuild our trains, transit systems, harbors, and inland waterways. We have to reorganize schooling at a much more modest level. We have to close down most of the overseas military bases we're operating and conclude our wars in Asia. Mostly, we have to recover a national sense of common purpose and common decency.

Cultural Confederacies anyone?