[charleslb]

Some number of years ago, when GOP jihadists who are perennially waging a political and culture war to "take back America" had just taken control of Congress, Newt Gingrich, who apparently was trying to cast himself and his conservative cohorts as rebels, said that we were witnessing a "second Civil War" (Newt the historian seems to have forgotten that the rebels in the first Civil War were the bad guys and that they didn't fare too well). This apt characterization of the conservative movement as embarked on a "second Civil War" is about the only statement to ever emerge from the otherwise lying lips of Mr. Gingrich that I agree with. Let me elaborate.

Once upon a time in American history the people of the Southern states of the country we're exceedingly unhappy that the industrial North was exercising more economic and political clout than they were capable of mustering. Those progressive damned Yankees were perceived and painted by down-home proto-teabaggers and the plantation owners who molded public opinion as enemies of liberty ("liberty" of course being perversely reconceptualized as the right of slave owners to deny their African servants the status of free men and women) and of a traditional way of life.

Now then, the disgruntled demos of Dixie finally got to the point that they couldn't even tolerate being a part of the Union anymore, for that would mean compromising with what today would be called "liberal" Northerners. And of course compromise entails making concessions, i.e. not having everything one's way. But, unbecomingly, Southern stalwarts of state's rights rode (in their own minds, at any rate) a political and moral high horse that trod underfoot lesser ethical issues such as whether or not black people were people and were being done heinously wrong by being enslaved. No, from their self-righteous vantage point atop their militantly moralistic mount they could see absolutely no good reason why they shouldn't have everything their own way.

And so the cognitive patterns of Southern leaders and just plain folks devolved into a totalistic, All-right-is-on-our-side, Our-way-or-we'll-hit-the-highway-to-secession mentality. Ordinarily this would be called a black and white mentality with no shades of gray allowed. However, given the color adopted by the Confederate military for its uniforms, perhaps it's more apt to say that in this instance the minds of the South's politically schismatic masses veered into a gray psychological area; one in which a defensiveness about the dark side of Southern society (namely of course an economy based on slave labor) blended with a white hot antagonism to them there "liberal" Northerners treading upon state's rights; producing a bleakly ultimatumy mind-set – i.e. a mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-anymore-if-we-don't-get-our-way-100% mind-set whose only prospects were the dismal ones of secession and a tragic civil war.

Well, what's the point of this extended historical excursion? Let me answer that in the form of a question, do you see any psychological similarity between the We-have-all-right-on-our-side-and-will-make-no-conciliatory-compromises mentality of Confederates and the equally unyielding and unreasoning mental disposition of modern conservatives?

If you're a conservative your answer is of course quite probably no. But there arguably is indeed a distinct family resemblance between the Confederate mentality (which certainly could be characterized in contemporary political terminology as "conservative) and the ideologically totalistic, intransigent, intolerant, irked state of mind of the typical tea-partying Republican of red-state America. Both mentalities seem to fall into the same abovementioned bleakly gray area.

How so? Well, for one thing, on the doctrinaire right these days candidates must pass every, and I mean every litmus test to be deemed halfway acceptable to the mental signatories of the Contract From America. Ask Mitt Romney?! You would think that as a former vulture capitalist he'd be in pretty good standing with his plutocrat-supported party, but over the years he hasn't been enough of an ideological purist to suit his fellow conservatives who can't even abide acknowledging him as one of their own. Then of course there's the evangelical wing of the GOP (God's Own Party, as they would have it) whose confessional litmus test certainly will never be satisfied by a Mormon and who therefore rejects him for that theologically prejudiced reason alone, despite the fact that he and his fellow Mormons share their conservative "family values". And so far I'm only talking intraparty! When it comes to its contentious conversation with what it considers to be "lefties", or its anti-Obama monomania, well, the conservative movement's reactionary, die-hard, dogmatic zeitgeist graduates to a league of looniness, of bonkers factiousness that's truly astounding. It's indeed possible to see shades of Confederate gray in such a mentality, especially since so many conservatives are good ole Southern boys and girls. Funny that coincidence.

Alas, mutatis mutandis, it's precisely the same bigoted & bumptious binaric brain hard-on of the conservative camp for reducing its options to receiving an unconditional surrender of the moral and realpolitikal high ground on all of its core issues; or else going to war (thus far only figuratively speaking this time) with a too-progressive-for-its-liking president – which I'll point out again in1861led to actual open and armed hostilities – that we're up against once again today in the form of the "resurgent right".

Mm-hmm, moderates and wannabe bridge-builders on the starboard side of the spectrum can fuhgetaboutit. They can fuhgetabout even getting elected dog catcher. To appease our modern mental Confederates in what used to be Mr. Lincoln's party, to receive the warm embrace of the new warpath-stomping winger voter on election day you must be a remorselessly full-out free-marketarian; an unequivocal Obama opponent who reviles him as a cross between the second coming of Stalin and a Machiavellian Muslim mole bent on converting a free Christian nation into a demon-o-cratic dictatorship; an avid amateur Bible scholar, not a secularist or some other out-grouper such as a Latter-day Saint; hetero (and preferably macho), not homo; an anti-abortion absolutist who isn't even willing to allow a woman who was impregnated as a result of an act of rape to have legal access to a medical procedure to terminate her pregnancy; a Second Amendment ultraist who won't countenance not being allowed to own an Uzi; someone who's so thoroughly pro-death penalty that you'd like to replace the electric chair with electric bleachers; an unreconstructed anti-immigrationist, etc. You can see how it is that the term "moderate Republican" has become a veritable oxymoronic, like "compassionate conservative". The mentality of the Confederacy has indeed risen again, in the ranks and the guise of the Tea Party.

This degeneration of conservatism into the political fold of fundamentalists, of both the free-marketarian and religious variety, was quite predictable of course. The seeds of ideological totalism; hard-linerism; obstinacy; and rejectionism, rejectionism of modernity itself, have all been present in conservative psychology all along. These tendencies are simply flapping the far right's freak flag a good deal more stridently in everyone's face nowadays.

The conclusion is located directly below

[charleslb]

Conclusion
But why, what’s brought the negative elements in the winger’s mentality to the fore in such a pronounced fashion? Essentially, the aggrieving self-image of being victims, of being the virtuous victims of those lousy “liberals”. This of course helps explain why conservatives tend to perceive genuine oppressed groups (such as gays and minorities) as whiny victims, they’re quite simply projecting. And it explains the unwarranted p*ssed-offness, pettiness, and partisanship characteristic of contemporary conservatives.

The same false and resentful sense of having been tread upon by progressive blue-staters (Yankee blue-staters, as it were, back then) that led to the rebelliousness of the South has turned present-day conservatives into implacable Obamacare oppositionists, so to speak, and brought us to a sorry state of ideological internecine conflict in modern American politics. That is, a vexed and stalemated state of political affairs has been produced by subjective conservative grievances and grudgefulness stemming from the three Ps, psychodynamics, philosophy, and propaganda, not from objective socioeconomic reality.

Quite pathetically, conservatism today amounts to the politicized cognitive orientation of disgruntled folks whose disgruntlement is seriously misdirected, misdirected at government and Obama, rather than being discerningly focused upon the capitalist substructure of our system, a substructure upon which Obama is a mere pimple; at straw-man “liberals”; at their unemployed and foreclosed-upon neighbors; at blacks, immigrants, and gays, i.e. at any handy scapegoatable other; and at foreign enemies. Not so long ago conservatives had commies on their bothered brains, today they have socialists, secularists, and Muslims (all of which Obama represents in their muddled and misinformed thinking!), and the recession has gone and kicked their disgruntlement and anxiety and stridency into overdrive, causing them to out the psychological truth cloaked behind their politics and moralism.

Yes, conservatives, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that your fear that progressives on the left have a conspiratorial, crypto-totalitarian agenda to take away your traditional and cherished American liberties; that your anxious concern that a government empowered to regulate big business is going to regiment your lives; that your susceptibility to scaremongering about Barack Obama being Damien from The Omen all grown up; that all of this festering fear, fretfulness, and fraught fantasy is a product of puerile paranoia, a manifestation of infantile ideological mass hysteria. That is, it’s the same kind of childish conservative crazy, the same tantrumy terrible-twoism of the right that once upon a time plunged the country into civil war, and that today is plunging it in a “culture war”; and putting ordinary working citizens on the wrong side of the “class war” against oligarchic corporate CEOs. Grow up and get a grip conservatives!

Or don’t. It’s your prerogative, of course, to remain dittohead dupes and Ron-Paulist patsies of America’s plutocratic capitalism; punked from cradle to grave, recession to recession by the Wall Street elite that conservatives advocate for. It’s entirely your choice.

So, to recap, have you ever seen one of those coin sets that consist of a Lincoln penny and a Kennedy half dollar inset in a card printed with a list of the uncanny particulars the two assassinated prezzes have in common? Likewise, 21st century conservatives and 19th century Confederates share some eerie similarities. They both fancy themselves rebels, but they’re both rebels with an unrighteous cause. Nonetheless they both have the same militant and unconstructive mentality of having right on their side and of being above compromise and willing to go to war. They’re of course both decidedly anti-progressive. The Confederates hated a president they believed to be bent on freeing the South’s black slaves, conservatives hate a black president they believe to be bent on fettering our capitalist masters with needed government regulation. Confederates opposed progress on the race question of their day, as do conservatives on contemporary racial issues. Confederates were backward Southerners, as are many conservatives. Etc. Which all drives home the fact that today’s conservative movement is just another hurrah for the same without-light and love mentality that once gave us the Confederacy and this country’s bloodiest war. Let us hope, therefore, that the ongoing folly of the Republican primaries is the beginning of conservatism’s implosion.

[Magi2]

Hear HERE!
Bravo Charleslb!

:thumbup::thumbup::sunny:Once upon a time I had great respect for firedoglake.com but it was overtaken by pretenders.......rovian/rush manipulators..............
though a few headliner editors Have my full admiration!

Now I see SOME resurrection of sanity @ FDL though rrrrovian/rush dialog still lives there..........and as one who sees the glass as 1/2 full................
some of the sheep are veering off
for instance this today, coincidently:

[Magi2]

edited since I see something good happening and I hope others read #1 & 2 which your post calls attention to, Charleslb.Hear HERE!
Bravo Charleslb!

:thumbup::thumbup::sunny:



Once upon a time I had great respect for firedoglake.com but it was overtaken by pretenders.......rovian/rush manipulators..............
though a few headliner writers have my full admiration!

Now I see SOME resurrection of sanity @ FDL though rrrrovian/rush dialogue still lives there..........and as one who sees the glass as 1/2 full................
some of the sheep are veering off
for instance this today, coincidently:
http://firedoglake.com/2012/01/27/immediate-action-required/

And the sky is blue
By: Attaturk Friday January 27, 2012 1:30 am

one response........... interesting to read them ALL though............

inoilfieldhell January 27th, 2012 at 2:44 am 3

Intelligence can be a tricky subject, but prejudice and insensitivity can be a developmental issue, as seen in IQ tests and SATs. It could be signified by a lack of development of the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain, where empathy resides and logical corrilation is achieved. My suspicion is there are two types. An adult from a poor family that did not have the time to teach empathy and adults from rich families that were too selfish to bother. That would explain the country club Republicans going along with the religious right. Add childhood axiety, there will be an over development of the amygdala, giving that emotional push to be a hardcore conservative. The bigoted rich kid would still do well on tests, because of early stimulations of other types, while poor kids will stay bigoted and silly, from poor childhood mental stimulation and poor nutrician.

[Tom's Fork]

Charles, once again you've published here a thought-provoking tirade. Love it, don't stop!

Notes on your thesis:

The Confederates most certainly were fighting to protect the "peculiar institution" of slavery. Not so the North, no matter what propaganda was being thrown around.

The Soutern economy depended on slavery, and the economy was too fragile for a sudden end to slavery. Had the North offered a compromise, such as gradual end to slavery coupled with increased investment in Southern industry, the war would likely have been avoided. Are you aware the U.S. is the only country on Earth to have a civil war to end slavery? Everyone else did so peacefully.

But the North was not interested in compromise. All wars are economic in nature, no matter the propaganda the powers-that-be use to justify it ("For God and country!"). No, the North's interest was two-fold: Most of the cotton being grown was going to Europe. That's because the Yankee traders were not willing to pay free market prices for cotton. The Southerners sold to the highest bidder, typically France and Britain. The Yankee traders wanted control of the Southern cotton industry, at their prices. Which wasn't much, not anywhere near free market pricing. By the mid 1830s, cotton shipments accounted for more than half the value of all exports from the United States.Source: The Economic History Association (http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/ransom.civil.war.us)

And the Yankee traders wanted it all.

And the farmers of the Upper Midwest felt they could not compete with Southern farmers who used free labor. Of course, this was a bit of baloney, actually - few Southern farmers were growing much in the way of the grains so common in the Midwest. Cotton, tobacco, indigo, rice, peaches, yams, pecans - these are Southern crops, not so much in the Midwest. But the Upper Midwesterners were the most militant, the ones who wanted war the most. It was when they elected one of their own as president, Lincoln, that the South figured war was inevitable, and split off from the Union.

Now consider, please, what's going on with the far right wing. "The Second Civil War" proclaims Gingrich. Okay, have it your way, Newtie - war it is. All wars are economic in nature! All of them! And what are the underlying economic points in this war?

Free trade, globalization, these concepts are good for the Wall Streeters whose sole concern is their own greed, their own self-interest. Not a good idea for America, it's been a disaster. Europe as well, and Japan - now China is teetering on the brink of depression, many economists expect them to fall off the edge within the next five years.

End business regulations. One of the most basic tenets of laissez-faire economics is "Maximize profits in the short run (http://www.amosweb.com/cgi-bin/awb_nav.pl?s=wpd&c=dsp&k=perfect+competition,+short-run+production+analysis)." The fact that regulations give long term stability is irrelevant. Their only concern is with this quarter's profits, this year's bonus. Long term considerations are not in the equation at all.

See connections here? The Southern plantation owners (including my great-great grandfather who owned 300 slaves) had no concern about long term interests, but only in short term. Every study ever done says that slavery was in the long run counter-productive....historians have taken a broader view of the situation, arguing that the sectional splits on these economic issues reflected sweeping economic and social changes in the Northern and Western states that were not experienced by people in the South. The term most historians have used to describe these changes is a "market revolution."[Ibid]

Market revolution. The emerging economies of globalization are causing economic havoc in the United States. The teabaggers are being left behind, and they are reacting as you might expect those of their psychology would - blaming everyone around them. Blame the liberals, blame the Democrats, blame the media, blame everyone but themselves. Yet blame themselves they should - they are the ones who keep voting for laissez-faire promoting politicians.

We need fair trade, not free trade. We need to quit giving corporations tax breaks to shut down factories in the U.S. and move overseas.

We need the end to laissez-faire economics, which are ruining this country. It is the new Confederates of which you speak, Charles, which makes this difficult.

Yes, Newt, it is war. Class warfare, the people vs. the one-percenters and their "New Confederate" food soldiers.

[charleslb]

Tom, once again you've provided some very well-thought-out and informative feedback. Thank you.

[Tom's Fork]

You know, I been thinking....(okay, enough with the snide jokes! Sheesh, you'd think just because I don't have a brain.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RjXY_-PUbo))

Whoops - something's come up, I'll continue in a while...sorry.

Later, via edit:

-V-, your programming just dumped about half-an-hour's worth of research and writing! What gives?

Let me try to redo what I did. Sheesh.

Okay, one more time:

I have been thinking about Newtie's new civil war. A thought or two I'd like to share.

I can think of no time in American history where either of two events happened:
A general labor struggle that did not come to violence.
A middle-class uprising.

Invariably, when there is general labor violence, the powers-that-be are the ones who start it. They send in the National Guard, the Pinkertons and other strike-breakers, and the violence begins. If anyone knows of an instance when the workers started the violence, please let me know, I'd like to study this. So much to learn....please note, I said general labor violence; I am not so interested in a specific instance, at a single mine or single plant. Though if you know of such that you find particularly interesting, please let me know.

And the powers-that-be don't care who dies. In the Ludlow Massacre (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre), the National Guard attacked a tent city of miners and their families. Two women and eleven children died, along with several miners. Burnt to death, a horrible way to die.

In an aside: Did you know that the Columbine High School massacre of fifteen years ago was not the first massacre in Columbine? In the Columbine Massacre (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_mine_massacre) of 1927, the National Guard attacked a group of unarmed miners with machine guns, killing six and wounding a number more.

And I can think of no time when there was a middle-class uprising. Why should the middle class revolt? Through our entire history, each generation did better than the one before.

Not anymore. Ever since Reagan did away with the fair trade and Keynesian economics that made this nation the greatest ever, things have gone downhill for the middle class. When Reagan took over as president, the average CEO made four-two times more than the lowest paid worker in his company. Now it approaches six hundred. Half the workers in this country had high-paying, middle class factory jobs in 1980. Now two-thirds of our citizens have low-paying service jobs. And for the first time ever, this last generation did worse than their parents. And their children are doing even worse.

[-V-]

-V-, your programming just dumped about half-an-hour's worth of research and writing! What gives?

it's a good idea, when putting together something lengthy, not to depend solely on your browser and the forum software's dependability. when i've written more than 10 or 15 minutes i copy it elsewhere

also, people, help me out
when you see an image that's probably not owned by the poster, please say something to me or them. i can't continue operating this site under the very real threat of a copyright lawsuit!

[Tom's Fork]

Yeah, I do need to keep a copy somewhere.

This has been a bad afternoon for writing, as I have been repeatedly interrupted and lost a lot of writing/research. Please allow me to resume; with any luck, I will eventually complete my thoughts.

To resume:

And the middle class is beginning to organize and fight back.

In every instance I know of where labor troubles led to violence, the powers-that-be were safely far away. The governor sent in the National Guard, but the governor did not himself go. The mine/factory owners sent in the strike-breakers, but they themselves stayed away. The powers-that-be do not care who dies for their wealth, as long as it's someone else.

Notice a difference this time? Yeah, this is not so much a labor struggle that is beginning to develop, but a middle class uprising. And this time, the powers-that-be may not be so immune. What happens if Occupy Wall Street turns into Assault Wall Street?

It is quite easy to come up with a scenario where the governor sends in the police/National Guard to Wall Street to break up the protests. Violence ensues, as there has already been some minor violence in several Occupy protests around the country. The police or Guard opens fire, and the people fight back.

This time, the powers-that-be are not far away; the violence is literally at their doorsteps. Right outside their places of business, their banks and investment companies. And here comes the firebombs, the snipers, whatever, and the bankers begin dieing. Are they ready to protect their interests themselves, or will they run and let the police and guard die along with the strikers?

Newt, you want civil war. You may get more than you ever imagined.

[Scott]

Hahah, I just referred to this argument in a recent article I wrote.

But yes, I do believe most of the GOP could be classified as "Modern Conservatives" - while Ron Paul, on the other hand, would be more of a "Modern Anti-Federalist."

[independentDEM]

YES! They are! lol
I've spent half of my life down South and many of the white people down here still espouse the views of their grandfathers...

[Tom's Fork]

YES! They are! lol
I've spent half of my life down South and many of the white people down here still espouse the views of their grandfathers...

I'm a dedicated Southerner, myself. And you are absolutely right.

Just yesterday I heard something that shocked even me, and I thought I was about shock proof when it comes to racism.

Fellow I don't really know but am often at the same place he's at - fella was career Navy, and all he does is Navy. All his clothing declares his Navyhood. His actions, his everything. I mean, this guy lives - breathes - eats Navy. And of course, he acts very Navy, in his bearing, in his manners.

And yesterday I heard him ranting about someone needs to shoot that n*** president Obama. A Navy man, urging violence against the commander-in-chief? Now that's shocking!