Slave states vs. free states, 2012

[DonViejo]

A century and a half later, we've come full circle: The red-blue state divide falls along Confederate-Union lines

BY MICHAEL LIND

-snip-

As the cartogram shows, in terms of population and votes the South vastly outweighs the thinly populated Prairie/Mountain states, even though the latter get disproportionate representation in the U.S. Senate and the electoral college. The cartogram provides a pretty good reflection of the situation perceived by conservative white Southerners, by depicting a besieged South encircled and on the verge of being crushed by multiracial, polyglot, immigrant-friendly, secular humanist, progressive Blue America.

Now that they dominate the Republican Party, Southern conservatives are using it to carry out the same strategies that they promoted during the generations when they controlled the Democratic Party, from the days of Andrew Jackson and Martin van Buren to the civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. From the 19th century to the 21st, the oligarchs of the American South have sought to defend the Southern system, what used to be known as the Southern Way of Life.

Notwithstanding slavery, segregation and today’s covert racism, the Southern system has always been based on economics, not race. Its rulers have always seen the comparative advantage of the South as arising from the South’s character as a low-wage, low-tax, low-regulation site in the U.S. and world economy. The Southern strategy of attracting foreign investment from New York, London and other centers of capital depends on having a local Southern workforce that is forced to work at low wages by the absence of bargaining power.

Anything that increases the bargaining power of Southern workers vs. Southern employers must be opposed, in the interest of the South’s regional economic development model. Unions, federal wage and workplace regulations, and a generous, national welfare state all increase the bargaining power of Southern workers, by reducing their economic desperation. Anti-union right-to-work laws, state control of wages and workplace regulations, and an inadequate welfare state all make Southern workers more helpless, pliant and dependent on the mercy of their employers. A weak welfare state also maximizes the dependence of ordinary Southerrners on the tax-favored clerical allies of the local Southern ruling class, the Protestant megachurches, whose own lucrative business model is to perform welfare functions that are performed by public agencies elsewhere, like childcare.

read more/view maps and charts:
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/10/slave_states_vs_free_states_2012/

[rfranklin]

1. The Southern Strategy: Let's vote for the people who will fuck us economically!

Yeah that's the ticket!

[Speck Tater]

2. Read "Better Off Without 'Em" by Chuck Thompson

that book explains it all, and makes a strong case for why we should let the South secede. His thesis is that they do more damage to the U.S. than they are worth.

[man4allcats]

4. Regarding my self-delete

I only deleted it because I couldn't make the link I wanted to use work correctly so after several tries I just gave up and deleted the post. Sometimes I really miss the old DU.