"Washington Post" alarmed by possible Scottish secession. UPDATE:

The Washington Post is alarmed by possible Scottish secession.

They are running this Op Ed piece on possible Scottish secession by George Robertson of Britain.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/scotland-secession-could-lead-to-re-balkanization-of-europe/2014/01/05/df076e94-578e-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html


The Washington Post itself ran this editorial against Scottish secession titled, "Scottish independence is part of a worrying trend."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/scottish-independence-vote-is-part-of-worrying-trend/2012/10/30/4c320fb2-1896-11e2-a55c-39408fbe6a4b_story.html

The hypocrisy of this is somewhat hilarious.

In 1995 the Washington Post published this article by League of the South (LOS) Michael Hill and then LOS board member Thomas Fleming. The organization was then called the Southern League and was conceived by Thomas Fleming. UPDATE: I forgot to put this link in for the article.

http://dixienet.org/rights/2013/new_dixie_manifesto.php

This was a column about the Southern League by Washington Post columnist George Will.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-12-28/news/1995362074_1_lombard-league-league-meetings-southern-writers

Evidently indulging secessionists in the United States because you think at the time it was quixotic is okay, but finding out that what was for decades a seemingly quixotic secessionist movement in Scotland, that it is now on the verge of success is a horror.

The Scottish National Party for years polled single digits in elections.

That nations are imagined is an axiom of cultural geography. We are a particular nationality because we think we are. The neo-Confederates have figured this out. Thomas Fleming proposed the Southern League after observing in Italy the Lega Nord (Northern League) and the break up of the Soviet Union. The League of the South studied the nationalist movement that created Norway out of Sweden. The idea of Norway started out as a literature that created Norwegian distinctiveness. Once the Norwegians thought of themselves as Norwegians the nation was a foregone conclusion.

The Soviet Union is no more because at one point even its leaders no longer imagined themselves as Soviets.

The Washington Post is has been missing in action in reporting the neo-Confederates in the United States. The Post might consider that the United States is full of monuments honoring secessionists who made a violent attempt to break up the United States. The whole idea of secession isn't necessarily confined to Europe.

If Scotland secedes then secession will become a real possibility for many elsewhere. Great Britain has been a nation for quite some time. The Scotland and England have been one nation since 1707. That is over 300 years ago. There may be successful secessionist movements elsewhere, but if the Catalans do or don't secede it won't have too much impact on the American or the English speaking imagination. However, Scotland, England, and Great Britain occupy a special space in the American imagination.

If Scotland does secede what was unimaginable become imaginable.