Imagining No America

Edited for clarity and a little elaboration of ideas.

As any reader of this blog knows I oppose secession movements generally, though I think there are exceptions, and I opposed all and any secession movements from the United States of America.

The idea of living in a small nation nauseates me. I don't mind visiting a small nation, I suppose it could be quaint, and those that live there, if they are happy living there, that is fine. I would find it claustrophobic. The next big thing would be always coming from outside the nation.

As I explained in an earlier post I like driving long distances with no borders. I like great national enterprises. I think large nations generally are more secure.

Anyone who reads cultural geography and the theory of nationalism knows that nations are imagined. We are Americans because we imagine we are. Nations involve continuous work of creating national identity in the next generation.

Nations are created because there are those, usually national elites, who desire that the nation exist. Nations as an idea develop starting in the 18th century and triumph in the 20th century, but the idea  is declining towards the end of the 20th century and during the 21st century as elites instead imagine globalism. Also, our global interconnectivity tends to erase boundaries.

Should nationalism cease to be useful to someone their national identity can vanish quickly.

Such as in this article, "We could have been Canada?"
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/19/we-could-have-been-canada/

I think this article is published for amusement. I think it is.  However, I think it is of concern because we can easily imagine many things as it suits our fancy and in reading this article many can start imagining alternatives to being American since they learn the United States of America is not a given.

All nations exist only as long as they are seen as needed. They can vanish easily.

I think the reasons for national existence in the 19th and 20th century are inadequate for a variety of reasons. They are basically ad hoc for the needs of their time. There needs to be a reason for national existence suitable for the 21st century.

I think that there are many good reasons to live in a large Republic. Someone needs to enumerate why living in a large nation is inherently better.

Secession movements will continue to be a possibility as long as national existence is based on ideas of the 19th and 20th century. In particular, exceptionalism, the idea that America is outside of ordinary history, is not good. The moment America is doing poorly, the moment the spell of exceptionalism is broken, America will find itself desperate for a justification.

I don't think we can defend American national existence if we don't recognize what sustains national identity and recognize the fragility of nations. If we assume that it is set in concrete we will have done nothing to defend national existence against the possible events of history.

"Breitbart" and the Confederacy. They aren't the "Southern Partisan." They are banal white nationalists with a policy destructive to American nationalism. "Breitbart" reporting could be an aid to Russia

I had said earlier that Breitbart was a modern day Southern Partisan, They are not. After printing out maybe about 100 articles and scanning them and reading for the last few weeks closely what they say I am beginning to see what their strategy is.

The Breitbart view of the Confederacy will please and displease neo-Confederates.

On one hand Breitbart will publish articles like this.

For example this series about the Houston Independent School District in Texas getting rid of Confederate names for schools.

In this article Breitbart claims they are erasing history.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/03/22/more-texas-school-district-seek-to-erase-confederate-past/

This article says that taxpayers are complaining that changing the name is a waste of money. How many taxpayers isn't mentioned.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/05/03/changing-name-of-texas-school-will-cost-500k/

Again another article about irate taxpayers, which means that there are at least 2.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/08/11/taxpayers-slam-multi-million-dollar-plans-rename-houston-schools/

On the other hand Breitbart invokes the Confederacy to condemn Democrats and liberals.

In this article Ian Hanchett quotes Charles Krauthhammer saying that the supporters of Sanctuary cities, cities where the police don't go after immigrants, are using "the language of the Confederates."
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/12/05/krauthammer-sanctuary-cities-speaking-the-language-of-the-southern-segregationists/

Then there is this article in which the California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon is condemned as neo-Confederate. As I blog earlier on, I didn't see exactly how Rendon was neo-Confederate and I am fairly good on determining neo-Confederacy.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/12/05/rendon-speech-neo-confederate-editorial/

Condemning a speaker, writer, author, columnist, politician, celebrity by claiming that they have some element or feature or similarity to the Confederacy is also a condemnation of the Confederacy. Denouncing some statement, policy, position paper, or resolution claiming that it has elements of the Confederacy is necessarily a condemnation of the Confederacy.

Saying that something is bad because is like or similar or derives from something else, necessarily means that the something else is bad.

More interesting is that Breitbart reporting implies neo-Confederate ideology is bad, since it condemns certain thinking as having Confederate affinities or components or elements.

However, if anyone tries to get rid of a Confederate monument or holiday or place name Breitbart is entirely against it. It might seem contradictory and a person might think that it is just that Breitbart has no coherent ideology and is just a maniacal rage machine. Just because it is a rage machine doesn't mean they are stupid or don't have a strategy.

Breitbart supports a banal white nationalist America. So for issues in the present it supports a strong national government in pursuit of its agenda.

However, in the past, all fighting white Americans are held to be heroic and pulling down one statue to one white American might lead to another statue of a white American being pulled down. The Civil War of Breitbart seems to be the Civil War of the 1950s or earlier, a "romance of reunion" Civil War, a white solidarity maintained by the idea that the Civil War was an avoidable mistake or was only about preserving the union, but wasn't about slavery or race, and in any case the Civil War demonstrated white bravery.

Breitbart's concept of patriotism, a white nationalism, is dangerous to the United States, since white nationalism can't be the basis of a strong American national identity in a multiracial America, and instead will work to undermine America.

And there are foreign powers which will be glad to exploit the situation. It has already become clear that Russia is aiding both left wing and right wing nationalist groups, both California and Texas secessionists. They are aiding both left wing and right wing groups in Europe also. Their policy is a pragmatic realpolitik to attack Western democracy and to undermine their geopolitical opponents.

They will be very quick to seize on strategies of exploiting racial nationalist groups. With their support of neo-Confederates and Texas secessionists already supporting white nationalists. The Russians must be reviewing what other racial nationalists that they can support.

National sentiment is always provisional. With a change in a situation individuals will reevaluate their national identity. This is demonstrated by the current secession movements where both left wing and right wing groups feel that they have no prospects of their agenda in the current political unit being successful.

If the Trump administration is dragging hundreds of thousands or even millions of Hispanics out of their homes and dumping them in Mexico where these individuals end up in camps where they are starving there is bound to be a Hispanic nationalist movement. The United States did steal the Southwest United States as President Ulysses S. Grant as explain in his memoir:

"I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day, regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory." 

Surely some Hispanic nationalist will want to quote this.

As the Trump administration undermines civil rights and voting rights and shows an indifference to cases where police officers shoot African Americans and the Trump administration expresses a hostility towards the Black Lives Matter movement surely some Black Nationalists will seek to capitalize on the situation.

In 2016 the situation regarding reckless and wrongful shooting of African Americans came dangerously close to getting out of control as some individual African Americans sought to take revenge by shooting police officers and some neo-Confederate groups sought to have counter protest at Blasck Lives Matter protests.

I think with Trump being elected we are likely  to see right wing white groups show up with guns at Black Lives Matter protests. At Black Lives Matter protests there are already African American groups parading with guns. A few days ago a young person with guns fired shots in a pizza parlor in Washington, D.C. because of some lunatic right wing news story that the Clinton's were using its back rooms for child sex slavery. These protests with white nationalists, black nationalists, and the Black Lives Matter protesters, some carrying guns, will be combustible.

All we need to have is two groups at a Black Lives Matter protest shooting at each other and the situation could spiral out of control. It might not even be that the two protesting groups set it off, a third party, a lone individual, might decided to shot one of the protesters to set things off.

In any deteriorating situation Black Nationalism will seek to capitalize on the situation.

Then there is the situation of native Americans. How well has the American nation treated these groups historically? Not very well.  We still have Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. Surely the Russians will find some opportunities.

All racial nationalisms share the same reactionary understanding of nationality. They only differ in which group they see themselves as advocating for. So it won't be that difficult for a white reactionary nationalist Russia to support minority nationalisms in America. They will find that in many ways they think very similarly.

Also, it should be understood to have your movement backed by a major world power gives it credibility.  Also, a major world power has ways of impressing a separatist movement.

When visiting nationalists are hosted by important officials in prestigious buildings the visiting nationalists are certainly impressed and given confidence and faith in their movement. When the nationalist group sees their leader hosted by important officials in an impressive historic building they can't but imagine what they are doing is important since important people with real power see it as important. The photos of these meetings certainly will give the movement credibility.

Our nationalist elites still see separatism as amusing and a novelty and don't take it seriously. This is because they are in many ways vacuous and an intellectually inbred set of people.

It is time for the government to wake up and start counter measures against separatism. As I stated earlier it needs to be NOT oppressive, but a strategy informed by a critical understanding of the theory of nationalism.

Also, government actions and policy needs to be reviewed such that nationalists are not encouraged. This is not to say avoid certain policies because you are afraid to aggravate some separatist nationalist direction, but to make sure that some policy doesn't needlessly enable separatist nationalism when it could easily have been avoided.

I suggest Michael Billig's "Banal Nationalism," and Donald Mitchell's "Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction." These books are available on the used market. They are not big books, and reading the both of them will give a fairly comprehensive view of the topic and provide most what a an anti-separatist program needs to know.


My paper on banal white nationalism.
http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/breaking-the-white-nation.html

Globalism is here regardless

With the Alt-Right and neo-Confederates, the original Alt-Right, there is a great deal of talk about the end of globalism.

If you mean a certain set of global arrangements run by a certain set of political actors and groups then it might or might not happen that a particular global arrangement might continue or come to an end.

If on the other hand you look at the arrangement of things, the world is global already and will continue to be so. The question is only how this global world is arranged.

THE PAST

There is a material basis to human arrangements. In the 18th century where transportation was on horseback, maybe carriage on some rough roads where there were roads, and by boat powered by sail or oar or pulled along a canal by horses, geographical distance was tremendous. Communication then was limited. Canals were considered a tremendous thing since they could reduce the cost of transport.

Cursive was invented so that a handwritten letter could be written faster so writing a long letter to someone without taking up an inordinate amount of time could be done. Compared to today the amount of publishing and periodicals were limited. Also, you have to be a member of a class which had the time to read and the time to write. That wasn't too exhausted by the end of the day to do either.

Newspaper were circulated by mail and another editor might learn of something weeks latter.

Education for the great majority of the population was very limited. So even if something was given to them they would likely not be able to take advantage of it.

THE PRESENT

The whole planet is being connected by email, text messaging, Skype and other video communications, and the World Wide Web which is really world wide and which is available most everywhere. If I go online I can read a page from the other side of the globe in a few seconds.

The current means of transportation are tremendously more advanced than the 18th century. There are automobiles, some self-driving, and a huge system of highways  and roads for them to transverse over. There are trucks. There are bus companies to transport people. There has been built a railroad transportation system. There are more canals than in the 18th century. There are airplanes and jet planes. In cities there are mass transit systems.

There are orbiting satellites doing a wide variety of functions traveling around the earth or in geostationary orbits. There are proposals for supersonic and hypersonic planes.

Some nations have high speed trains to transport people.

Boats now have powerful engines and are of a variety of sizes including extremely large sizes to transport materials.

If you got on a jet in the morning in the United States you could have dinner in Paris or London easily.

There are alternatives to transportation such as web conferencing, conference calls, and other means such that traveling doesn't need to be done.

There are keyboards to rapidly type messages, and systems that guess at what word you are intending to type. There are systems which recognize voice. Cursive is dying out.

Land line telephone has come and gone and cellphones communicate by voice or by text message or by email. The means of communication are in as many forms as we might imagine.

There is a wealth of published material both in print and online accessible forms from most everywhere. Large numbers of people have the time to read after since they now work an eight hour day. If they work shift they just have to wait for their days off. Many people earn enough to buy many books.

Email and the Internet connect everyone. Advanced communication systems also facilitate activities and organization that simply would not be possible.

Even language is being affected as English becomes the defacto global language. The sad thing is that thousands of languages are dying out with ethnolingists rushing to record them from elderly speakers. However, with fewer languages there are fewer language barriers to communication. With a defacto global language we can communicate with each other.

Native English speakers have been advised that their use of slang might make them less comprehensible to a group of second language English speakers. There is a global English out there.

Even where there is a language barrier you can use translation programs to get a good idea what is being said. With the global demand for books being high, there are many translators translating books into different languages.

We live in a global system that is triumphant. It is just a question how globalism will be organized.

ANTI-GLOBALISM

Anti-globalists comment on the secession of Scotland and Catalan but they omit that the secession plans of these places include being members of the European Union (EU). That is how these secessionists think that they can exist as small states in a world order is by being within a framework of the EU. In fact one of the driving forces of Scottish separatism is that Britain has left the EU and Scotland wants to remain in the EU.

Secessionists wish to put all secession movements and secession from the EU into one undifferentiated bucket for their discussion, and certainly this tactic works well to obscure what is really happening.

PRO GLOBALIST FORCES:

Anti-Globalists will be attempting to command the tide to go out.

There is an inter-connectivity in many forms.

With communication and information it is much easier for people to migrate. With a global economy the economic system will work to equalize the supply of labor. Businesses will relentlessly push for labor where they perceive shortages, or they will move their facilities where there is labor.

Nationalists will be in the situation of trying to defy economic forces.

With communication and information it is much easier for ideas to be shared, exchanged on a global basis.

With the internet there are no gate keepers to block the exchange of ideas.

This will lead to a world of global minded individuals. They will read the local papers, the national papers, and overseas papers online. They will choose from a variety of papers. Online publishers will want to publish opinions not dealt with by the local print media.

Even secessionists are thinking globally by discussing secession from a global view point and going to secession conferences in other nations to meet other secessionists from multiple nations.

There is also a much more critical awareness of what nationalism is, that it is to some extent, if not entirely, a contrived thing. Also, that it leads to violence.

People are not going to want to be cut off from the global system.

With economic nationalism there will be barriers to purchasing things from overseas and being able to sell over seas.

Young people, the best and brightest of them will find that their small country doesn't have large scientific projects to get involved with. There won't be other major projects to get involved in. They will have to hope that their small nation was able to strike a deal of participation in a major scientific project where they will have limited opportunities.

They won't be in a nation which have the headquarters of major multinational corporations for job opportunities. Instead they will have opportunities in a local facility of the major multinational corporation very likely headquartered elsewhere.

Great multinational corporations will seek headquarters locations where they won't be cut off from the world. The business of business is business.

Globalization does decentralize some things, but  being there will still count, especially if there is a national barrier between you and the opportunity.

Nations not integrated into global systems will become backwaters.

An increasingly global public will like less and less being a prisoner of some local nationalist movement.

Also, some of this resentment of globalization is racial. The world European empires are now all gone, the Soviet Empire is gone, a European empire. It is a multipolar world where one won't be privileged just because you are white. Though other resentments of globalization is that the old order passes away and this will have uneven effects and not everyone will benefit. Globalization maybe inevitable, but it might need some effort at transition.

Skills and hard work, knowledge, and the ability to think will be the skills to have in the future.

Some of the anti-globalization is that of local groups which hope to restore a position of privilege just because they are white by forming a local political entity or with drawing from global arrangements so they can dominate locally. They chose being a back water in which they dominate rather than swim in global oceans.  If you are poor swimmer perhaps this is a winning strategy.

This older generation that seeks some local ethnic state is passing away. It is revealed in opinion polls everywhere.

I think the consequences of anti-globalism are going to play out in Britain and they will become a scare crow to warn the nations.

A MOVIE WHICH WILL VEX THE ALT-RIGHT AND NEO-CONFEDERATES

I provide this video trailer. I am not endorsing the movie necessarily. I might see it as light entertainment. I am putting it here since I think it represents everything neo-Confederates hate.

It is a movie with a liberal globalist view of the universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BszXhUjJz00

This video has had over 9,000,00 viewers. Expand it to full screen to see all of it.