Posted under Sovereignty and Secession
For state’s and communities on the Gulf Coast, the twin swords of Damocles are hanging over them. On the one hand you have a large multi-national oil company incapable of either following its own safety procedures or telling the truth about the extend of the oil spill. On the other hand, you have a federal government ensnaring efforts of local officials and ordinary citizens from taking steps to protect their coastlines from this disaster. The Gulf coast is getting it from both ends, big government and big business.
But don’t take our word for it. Go ask James Carville.
Secession is a conditions often caused when citizens feel the powers that be from far away places no longer either pay heed to their voices or concerns or feel powerless against those who wish to despoil their land and their waters. No doubt Louisiana governor Bibby Jindahl is doing all he can in this crisis but as governor in these United States he’s dwarfed by the twin swords with limited power.
I’d say, if the League of the South needed a better reason to call for Southern independence or at least a broad decentralization, I can’t think of one right now.
James on 24 Jun 2010 at 1:35 am #
When was the last time you heard a League of the South speaker attack Big Corporate power? They should have been doing that for a long time now as well as articulating a political philosophy of both human-scale government as well as human-scale economics for the South. Sure, you might hear a throw-away line from an occasional speaker here and there but it has not been a consistent theme in League’s efforts to get its message out into the public sphere. The problem with constantly attacking the Leviathan state, as they have done since the organization’s founding in 1994, is that its rhetoric has not distinguished it from the larger “conservative” movement which uses essentially the same rhetoric. The League just disappears into the background of Conservative talk. I know that League members would say, “No. We’re different. We actually mean it,” which I am sure is true but in terms of actually making progress toward the League’s goals it has not helped. It’s as if the League is only appealing to one half of the Southern tradition. This is a shame because right now I believe there is a real hunger out there for alternative perspectives and alternative paths away from this stupid, narrow dichotomy of “Big Government” or “Big Business” that our political culture is stuck with. Our history and tradition afford so much more, so many more ideas, a richer potential politics than what we have. If we could only rediscover it. I have often heard conservative say that Americans have lost the courage of our ancestors. But, I fear its even worse than that. Americans today, including Southerners, simply do not have the imagination that their ancestors had and because of that they can’t envision how secession and nullification, decentralization and local economic revitilization (abjuring Wal-Mart as much as possible and shopping the local farmers market) can help create a better future for our people, one in which we control our lives and destiny, not distant forces, both political as well as economic. If only….