Can THE MIND OF THE SOUTH Explain the Madness of the Neo-Cons?

[McCamy Taylor]

I started reading THE MIND OF THE SOUTH by W. J. Cash last night. In the first 40 pages he describes the period between 1800 and 1860 as the equivalent of colonialism---Americans of european decescent swarming across the south, driving off the Native Americans, clearing the forests so that enormous cotton plantations could be built, plantations manned by slave labor. The scene is eirrly reminiscent of HEART OF DARKNESS. Every white man, whether he is a plantation owner or a subsistance farmer, is a property owner and his own boss and king of his own piece of the south, living in relative isolation alongside his family, fiercely independent, leery of all authority except his own. All the manual labor on the plantations is done by a despised, oppressed slave class whose existence elevates the white race to something close to godliness while creating fabulous wealth for a very few lucky southerners. Those not lucky enough to have their own cotton plantation can move west and build one. All they have to do it kill some more Native Americans and clear some more forests and buy some slaves, and they will become kings too, just like Kurtz.

Anyway, I wonder if this is where the Neo-cons get their madness. Is this the reason they keep dreaming about invading other countries, except with oil instead of cotton? "We will invade Iraq and take their oil. And then we will take over Iran and get their oil. And then Venezuela. And all those brown skinned peasants will work for us, God's white chosen people." Is this why the administration is single minded in its efforts to drive oil prices sky high, even though in doing so it has lost its ally, MSNBC/GE?

Is this why some Americans continue to support the war in Iraq and the Neo-con policies? Even though they do not stand to gain financially from them?

[tocqueville]

1. I think you have a point here

+ the fact that they never accepted their defeat in the civil war


Virgil Caine is the name and I served on the Danville train
'Til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again
In the winter of '65, we were hungry, just barely alive
By May the tenth, Richmond had fell, it's a time I remember oh so well

The night they drove Old Dixie down and the bells were ringing
The night they drove Old Dixie down and the people were singin', they went
La-la-la la-la-la, la-la-la la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Back with my wife in Tennessee, when one day she called to me
"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee!"
Now I don't mind choppin' wood, and I don't care if the money's no good
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best

The night they drove old Dixie down and the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down and all the people were singin', they went
Na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na-na

Like my father before me, I will work the land
And like my brother before me, who took a rebel stand

He was just eighteen, proud and brave
But a Yankee laid him in his grave
I swear by the mud below my feet
You can't raise a Caine back up when he's in defeat

The night they drove old Dixie oown and the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down and all the people were singin', they went
Na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na-na

The night they drove old Dixie down and all the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down and the people were singin', they went
Na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na-na

[Clark2008]

6. Utter BULLSHIT!

I am so fucking tired of all the Southern bashing on this board. I am Southern and I only think about the Civil War when one of you people who continue to think that MY people are living in the past bring it up.

Garbage.

This thread is garbage.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

2. The actual 'neocons' who are the source of the foreign policy are not

from the South at all.

So I would say no.

[Clark2008]

7. Thank you.

Excellent point.

[LouisianaLiberal]

3. Leo Strauss

That sounds like an interesting book. But if you're looking for the ideological father of the Neo-cons, it seems that Strauss had a great deal to do with their creation. (He didn't create the movement, but his writings influenced them.)

He has influenced many with his bastardization of Nietzsche and Plato. Even if most neo-cons haven't read him, I think you will understand them better if you know something about Strauss.



http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5010.htm

http://www.uregina.ca/arts/CRC/

[readmylips]

4. To southeners, patriotism is really that ugly racism they love....

and who better to capitalize on racism than KKKarl Rove, little bush, and their polital evil bastards.

[Clark2008]

8. Bullshit.

I'm Southern and I don't think that way.

So, your premise is wrong on the front.

[undergroundpanther]

5. The south

has a weird paradox in it at least the area my mom is from.
They are ok people.Religion has infiltrated very deep into their minds.They are isolated it takes forever to drive anywhere.

My grandma lived in the south all her life.She was a die hard Dem.
She was religious but not pushy not once did she push religion on me.
And she knew I was pagan.Primitive Baptists are different than fundies.

All those white people down south(north carolina etc.) are actually off white.They all got a bit of native american ,black in their past.And they do not talk about it.Right now logging mining companies are buying up farms land.There are NO jobs,the manufacturing jobs in places like Galax are shit and don't pay shit there are no unions.

The south has been brainwashed by their churches,I think the neocons knowing how civil rights came from liberal pulpits did the same thing and made the south forget about their liberal side.About the fact they are not all white as they wanna pretend.

Sometimes I think movements like the melungeons and lumbee ideas were an attempt and warping and fracturing of the two kinds of cultures,

The south is poor,jealous,paranoid, frustrated and believe it or not blacks and native americans and white mixed blood people went through alot of shit when the carpetbaggers and corporations rolled in with colonial ambitions,My native American Ancestors hid among whites to avoid the trail of tears,now the south it wants to be the carpetbaggers.

But they just can't pull it off so they come off as a bunch of theocratic bullies and to the rich savvy manipulating people manipulating the south look like beneficiaries they make the southerners feel like they got a voice, that desperation gives the neocons a base of deployable agents with true belief and fear.The south was too trusting of the church and too scared of changes and diversity because they are isolated from alot of social changes we take for granted.It hasn't become normal for them yet.

My aunt has been up here to Baltimore Twice in her LIFE,She is like a fascinated little kid in the city..In her backwater town The church has always had too much influence and power and because people like religion down there(it's their only social outlet and gathering place because the people are too isolated to just drive around and hang out.

They were seduced by people telling lies in church.The church was a holy place to these people.Almost magical..The south has been through alot of shit and they can see people on Tv scapegoating the south even today and they see changes in the culture outside their isolated place on TV( people doing stuff their daddies would have beaten the shit out of them for) and they do not understand it because they are far away from different people,lost in a time warp,scared of change,because it looks like everything their mommies and daddies thought were so horrible they'd get beaten if they did it,,The church saying how much danger we are in and Satan is in control,they'd better fight.

Real life changes scares them because the TV gives them a false impression,of life ,as do the churches .It all begins to make real life outside the mountains out to be Sodom & Gammorrah...All the hellfire right wing preachers do not help these people get over their fear of changes and differences..Last time the south faced such changes it was abusive corporate colonialism,eugenics and violence.People who are duped to think they are on top are loathe to lose that fake privilege even when that privilege is a total lie to make them loyal to the truly wealthy ruling class who will use them and throw them away again.They have nowhere else to turn with their culture shock. At least the manipulating neocon pigs won't toss them into what they have been taught from childhood is an evil hell like they see on TV.The neocons promise to take away the cultural cognitive dissonance change causes in these people who are isolated and their only pipeline outside the mountains is the dish TV..

What do you do if you are brought up puritan and beaten if you transgressed"family values" and then all you see is sex all day on TV Violence rape and child abuse on TV news? The world out there looks hellish.What if you got a preacher harping about the end-times in America. The picture looks convincing if you don't know any better and can't afford to go anywhere to find out.
In the south they've been duped and they are scared shit-less of changes they see and are too proud,traumatized or converted to dominionist claptrap that makes them feel secure to admit it.

[ridgerunner]

10. ^^^^

:eyes:

[entanglement]

9. Neocons are not southern - not by a long stretch

From wikipedia

"Neoconservatives are conservatives who are "new" (neo) to the conservative movement in some way. Usually, this comes as a result from the migration from the left of the political spectrum to the right, over the course of many years. Though every such neoconservative has an individual story to tell, there are several key events in recent American history that are often said to have prompted the shift.

Some of today's most famous neocons are from Eastern European Jewish immigrant families, who were frequently on the edge of poverty. The Great Depression radicalized many immigrants, and introduced them to the new and revolutionary ideas of socialism and communism. The Soviet Union's break with Stalinism in the 1950's led to the rise of the so-called New Left in America, which popularized anti-Sovietism along with anti-capitalism. The New Left became very popular among the children of hardline Communist families.

Opposition to the New Left and Détente with the Soviet Union would cause the Neoconservatives to emerge as the first important group of social policy critics from the working class. The original neoconservatives, though not yet using this term, were generally liberals or socialists who strongly supported the Second World War. Multiple strands contributed to their ideas prior to becoming neoconservatives, including the Depression-era ideas of former New Dealers, trade unionists and Trotskyists, particularly those who followed the political ideas of Max Shachtman. The current neoconservative desire to spread democratic capitalism abroad often by force, it is sometimes said, parallels the Trotskyist dream of world socialist revolution. The influence of the Trotskyists perhaps left them with strong anti-Soviet tendencies, especially considering the Great Purges targeting alleged Trotskyists in Soviet Russia. A number of neoconservatives such as Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz were Shachtmanites in their youth while others were involved in the Social Democrats, USA, which was formed by Schachtman's supporters in the 1970s."

more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_(United_States)#Origins