Secession now, secession tomorrow, secession forever!

[warrrreagl]

I don't agree with the assertion that only far right Southerners want to secede, but it is truly amazing how an often-ridiculed idea suddenly gains respectability with the addition of a few Yankees in the mix.

Secessionists meeting in Tennessee
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071003/...ist_movement_1
By BILL POOVEY, Associated Press Writer
Wed Oct 3, 3:15 AM ET

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - In an unlikely marriage of desire to secede from the United States, two advocacy groups from opposite political traditions — New England and the South — are sitting down to talk.

Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully.

That sounds just fine to the League of the South, a conservative group that refuses to give up on Southern independence.

"We believe that an independent South, or Hawaii, Alaska, or Vermont would be better able to serve the interest of everybody, regardless of race or ethnicity," said Michael Hill of Killen, Ala., president of the League of the South.

Separated by hundreds of miles and divergent political philosophies, the Middlebury Institute and the League of the South are hosting a two-day Secessionist Convention starting Wednesday in Chattanooga.

They expect to attract supporters from California, Alaska and Hawaii, inviting anyone who wants to dissolve the Union so states can save themselves from an overbearing federal government.

If allowed to go their own way, New Englanders "probably would allow abortion and have gun control," Hill said, while Southerners "would probably crack down on illegal immigration harder than it is being now."

The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly prohibit secession, but few people think it is politically viable.

Vermont, one of the nation's most liberal states, has become a hotbed for liberal secessionists, a fringe movement that gained new traction because of the Iraq war, rising oil prices and the formation of several pro-secession groups.

Thomas Naylor, the founder of one of those groups, the Second Vermont Republic, said the friendly relationship with the League of the South doesn't mean everyone shares all the same beliefs.

But Naylor, a retired Duke University professor, said the League of the South shares his group's opposition to the federal government and the need to pursue secession.

"It doesn't matter if our next president is Condoleeza (Rice) or Hillary (Clinton), it is going to be grim," said Naylor, adding that there are secessionist movements in more than 25 states, including Hawaii, Alaska, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Texas.

The Middlebury Institute, based in Cold Spring, N.Y., was started in 2005. Its followers, disillusioned by the Iraq war and federal imperialism, share the idea of states becoming independent republics. They contend their movement is growing.

The first North American Separatist Convention was held last fall in Vermont, which, unlike most Southern states, supports civil unions. Voters there elected a socialist to the U.S. Senate.

Middlebury director Kirpatrick Sale said Hill offered to sponsor the second secessionist convention, but the co-sponsor arrangement was intended to show that "the folks up north regard you as legitimate colleagues."

"It bothers me that people have wrongly declared them to be racists," Sale said.

The League of the South says it is not racist, but proudly displays a Confederate Battle Flag on its banner.

Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups, said the League of the South "has been on our list close to a decade."

"What is remarkable and really astounding about this situation is we see people and institutions who are supposedly on the progressive left rubbing shoulders with bona fide white supremacists," Potok said.

Sale said the League of the South "has not done or said anything racist in its 14 years of existence," and that the Southern Poverty Law Center is not credible.

"They call everybody racists," Sale said. "There are, no doubt, racists in the League of the South, and there are, no doubt, racists everywhere."

Harry Watson, director of the Center For the Study of the American South and a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said it was a surprise to see The Middlebury Institute conferring with the League of the South, "an organization that's associated with a cause that many of us associate with the preservation of slavery."

He said the unlikely partnering "represents the far left and far right of American politics coming together."

And secession is not just about the politics (left vs right) in the South. Southerners feel as autonomous as Serbia, Poland, or any of the Baltic States.

[Plan9]

This is where I interject with something ignorant like:

"The guys in blue won. Slavery was a bad idea but was 'necessary' for the economy at the time. Nobody is rising again. Get over it."

[Ustwo]

I keep hoping California secedes. Is that wrong?

[mixedmedia]

Uh, some southerners feel that way, not all of us, warrrreagl

And frankly, if I wanted to be part of a secession, I would move to New England. Don't particularly care to be governed by the League of the South folks.

[Glory's Sun]

I know I wouldn't mind if the south just fell off the face of the earth.. or.. seceeded..

however, I'm thinking that there's more to this article than I'm taking at face value.

[roachboy]

i dont get it.
did you actually look at the league of the south?
they are basically just another tiresome little neo-fascist group.

compare the wiki page for example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_the_South
to the statement of ideals from the front national:
http://www.frontnational.com/index.php
particularly their lovely positions concerning sucession from the eu.

both organizations argue that the "real culture" they defend is white, christian and ulta-conservative. both use this definition to set off the Evil Empire against which they imagine themselves struggling. both set up a logic that is exclusive at the levels of religion and ethnicity, but because they do not actually make the conclusions explicit themselves, they both deny that these implications necessarily follow.


now i am sure that the motive behind the op came from some wistful sense of antebellum nostalgia in which one severs "charm and courtesy" and "all things southern" from its actual contexts historically---from the artistocratic pretenses of cavalier society, from the plantation system this deployed inside of, from the economic system it sat upon...so this nostalgia is about the actual history in the way that the society for creative anachronism is about the mideval period.

as a kind of mental parlor game, i dont care about this one way or another.

but then again, i am a yankee so i suppose i am incapable by definition of understanding this deep southern thing.

but what seems quaint and musty and kinda irrelevant as a parlor game, becomes genuinely problematic if you transpose it from some curious tic employed as a solidarity check at "mixed" parties into an actual politics--if these politics amount to an updated blood and soil thing geared around a hallucination of "authentic culture."

let's assume this really is a parlor game, that the league of the south is a marginal little groups and that the idea behind the op was about the succession-nostalgia and not really about the politics and get on with drinking morning coffee...

[warrrreagl]

A) Not all Southerners want to secede
B) Not all Southerners who want to secede are racist or fascist
C) Not all secessionists in the article are Southerners

I just thought it was interesting. The easy response is Southerner=secessionist=racist=backwards hick=wrong. The response that requires accepting a different perspective is more difficult and less clear-cut.

[roachboy]

warrreagl:

i specifically said that the league of the south falls into at least some of those categories.
i didnt say anything about "all southerners" because i dont know what the cateogry would refer to and have no idea what kind of sentence one might impute to it.

i also specifically said that i didnt think you were motivated to post the op article out of any particular sympathy with the league.

i just thought the article odd.
if you really mean to have folk consider some "successionist" position as if that was a kind of exercise in expanding one's horizons and the only access you give to that position is routed through the league of the south....
anticipating the static that might generate is not rocket science.

what actually interests you about this?

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I keep hoping California secedes. Is that wrong?

We haven't made up our minds yet. Too busy surfing.

Am I wrong or is there a legal right to secede? I'm fairly certain that if the federal government and the body wishing to secede agree that it's alright, it can happen and is protected, but not 100%. If there really were a hypothetical consensus in a Southern (or any) state, and the Congress agreed, for whatever reason, then I guess we'd bid them a fond fair well and warm wishes as they secede and then slowly realize that there are only maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 states in the US that could self sustain: Alaska, California, Texas, and maybe Montana. Outside of those states, heavy trading would have to start immediately, with the US, and sovereignty would be questionable because of probable wishes not only to travel into the US, but also there may be a large part of the population that doesn't want to live outside the US.

[snowy]

I live in a state with several secession movements, past and present, though we weren't mentioned in the article. Here is a link to one of them:

http://cascadianow.org/

Southerners aren't alone by any means, and to think of secessionists as only being Southern white male bigots is incorrect. Oregon has been a hotbed of secession movements since it became a state. The funny thing is, the more Bush and Co. screw up in Washington, the more people talk about secession--I've had several discussions about it in recent weeks.

[MSD]

Didn't we have a big war a little while ago to determine whether states can succeed or not? Didn't the guys on the "no, they can't" side win?

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I keep hoping California secedes. Is that wrong?

I've been known to advocate sawing it off and letting it float away

[flstf]

Originally Posted by MrSelfDestruct

Didn't we have a big war a little while ago to determine whether states can succeed or not? Didn't the guys on the "no, they can't" side win?

I think before the Civil War most people including polititians thought that every state and former colony had the right to leave the union.

[BadNick]

To me this seems partly/mostly to be hovering around the federal vs states' rights argument. And this would not be something a socialist would see as a favorable path. In my view the federal government is/has gotten too big and powerful, and since they seem to do such a bad job at almost everything, less can only be better. I'm ready to give the local states guys a shot to see what they can do. Let's do that for 20 or so years and see how things look. But I feel bad for what might happen to states that depend on federal support for even the most basic needs. I propose that Pennsylvanians chip up and buy North Dakota as a summer camp location.

[Plan9]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I keep hoping California secedes. Is that wrong?

You mean break off into the ocean?

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by MrSelfDestruct

Didn't we have a big war a little while ago to determine whether states can succeed or not? Didn't the guys on the "no, they can't" side win?

I half recall something, but I can't remember how it ended. I think the question was left around the meaning of the ruling in Texas v. White. When reading the ruling, the following quote comes up:

The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the States.

This suggests (though not by any means conclusively) that if a state and Congress both agree, secession is legal. There's no direct precedence, but it's possible (so long as the state constitution allows it, which the CA Constitution doesn't, currently).

Originally Posted by MrSelfDestruct

I've been known to advocate sawing it off and letting it float away

If we can deport the idiots who sit on celebrity juries to like Iraq or something, that'd be okay with me. They are the biggest embarrassment.

[analog]

"The South" shall not, in fact, ever "rise" again.

And I have to laugh every time someone stands behind the confederate flag and calls it a symbol of "heritage, not racism". There are probably about 4 people in the whole US who actually believe that, and actually aren't racists.

Oh, and if "the south" wants to secede, they can't have Florida. lol

[QuasiMondo]

Sounds quite treasonous, if you ask me. While they claim independent soverignity is the motivation behind their secessionist movement, the loss of revenue, the damage to the economy, and the compromise of national security (because the states that have secessionist movements are also home to large military bases) will undermine the federal government and hurt the states that remain.