You won't get to CHOOSE whether to break-up America

Atlant

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Fri Oct-22-04 09:03 AM
Original message

You won't get to CHOOSE whether to break-up America

Edited on Fri Oct-22-04 09:05 AM by Atlant

Recently in General Discussions, a poll asked whether or not you'd
like to see the breaking-up of America into (roughly) a Red Zone
and a Blue Zone.

I don't think you'll need to choose this; instead, unless America
radically changes course, I think it's almost a certainty that
America WILL fracture.

You see, the Red Zone People aren't going away. They've been around
for a long time, and in the last thirty years or so, they've seen
their power grow tremendously. They're now quite used to having the
Government, the Corporations, and the Media all pandering to them.
So even though it's quite likely that the Blue Zone People are about
to elect a Blue Zone President, there's not going to be that much of
a shift in the politics of this country and there's certainly not
going to be much of a shift in the outlook of the Corporations, the
Media, or the Red Zone People, and none of those factions are going
to be the slightest bit interested in giving up power.(1)

In fact, based on their own statements, it seems quite likely that
a number of Red Zone Factions will rapidly, happily resort to
violence rather than submit to the reassertion of control by the
Blue Zone. It may not happen all at once, and it may not be focused
enough to draw much attention, but you can almost certainly count
on increased attacks on, for example, women's health care facilities,
mosques, and other instrumentalities that are perceived of as either
"liberal" or "foreign".

And without a media that is on their side, the Blue Zone People
will have no way of carrying a non-violent rebuttal back to the
Red Zone People. Fox, (MS)NBC, ABC, and a de-fanged CBS, PBS, and
NPR will still be out there shilling primarily for the corporations
that own them/fund them.

At some point, it may become *VERY* attractive for, say, New England
and a few mid-Atlantic states to simply leave the USA in favor of
forming a new Northeast American country or to join the Canadian
confederation. It will be equally favorable for the Pacific Northwest
and Northern California to form Ecotopia or Cascadia or join Canada.
And the industrial northern Midwest will likely also see no cause to
remain allied with the Red Zone either.

Not only will the internal and external politics of an artificially-
amalgamated United States continue to appall folks in the Blue Zone,
but the economics will continue to stink as well. The Blue Zone
continually props up the Red Zone economically (as regards tax flows
in and out of each zone) and this will become increasingly difficult
as Red Zone-directed policies continue to devastate the domestic and
international economies of the United States.

But what of the Blue Zone People trapped in the Red Zone, and
vice-versa? The obvious answer is immigration/emigration, and a
vast sorting-out of who belongs where. This will produce discontin-
uities during the transitional years, but they will be more than
made-up for by the increased cohesiveness that results once we
finally no longer need to pander to the willfully ignorant,
isolationist Red Zone People(2).

I think the faster we accept the ultimate schism and get on with
doing what needs to be done, the happier and safer everyone
(everywhere in the world!) will be(3).

Atlant

1) I think we can take it as a given that the Democrats will *NOT*
be recapturing the House of Representatives. It's up in the air as
to whether or not they'll recapture the Senate, but they certainly
won't be capturing a fillibuster-proof Senate, and unlike the
Democrats, the Republicans know how to exercise raw political
power to keep their members in line. Similarly, the Democrats
can't immediately recapture the Supreme Court and, due to the
Senate, wouldn't be able to shift its composition much anyway.
The Media will remain firmly in the hands of a few big Corporations
and the various state governments will remain largely Republican.

2) I leave it to the reader to add another half-dozen or so
"isms/ists" to the list of adjectives describing the Red Zone;
I'd probably agree with most that you might choose.

3) Hidden in this argument is the possibility that the world may, at
some point, decide that America needs to be contained using a com-
bination of economic and military pressure. I know that I would just
as soon see this need for containment limited to the Red Zone rather
than the entirety of what is now the United States.