South

150 Years Ago Today, The Civil War Began!

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On this day, April 12, in 1861, 150 years ago, the greatest tragedy in American history began, with the South Carolina government ordering the state militia to commence an attack against the US military fort, Fort Sumter, lying on an island in Charleston Harbor!

620,000 men were killed in the war that ensued for four years minus three days! 360,000 Union soldiers and 260,000 Confederate soldiers lost their lives, and two percent of the population were wiped out, creating a young and middle age male shortage only overcome by immigration over the next two generations!

The South tried to say the war was fought over different civilizations clashing, and the fight for states rights, but the truth is that it was the institution of slavery and its expansion westward and northward which led to the war!

Today, we still hear Southerners and even Westerners threaten secession from the Union, but they well know that cannot be allowed to happen, as the Union won the war and settled the issue of states rights for all time, no matter what radicals say!

The Civil War remains the greatest crisis in American history, and scars still remain, as South Carolina is today celebrating, rather then commemorating, the Fort Sumter attack, as if it is something to be proud of!

But the regionalism that existed then still exists today and affects our politics in the 21st century!

More will be said about the Civil War as we continue to follow the events of that tragic conflict over the next four years!

The States That Will Matter The Most In 2012 Presidential Election

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When one looks ahead to the 2012 Presidential Election, it is clear what the major battlegrounds will be.

As stated earlier, the Midwest is the major area of the country that will decide who is inaugurated President on January 20, 2013!

President Obama won all of the Midwest except for Missouri, but he is unlikely to win Indiana and Iowa in 2012, and Ohio and Missouri will be difficult, but he will win Illinois and seems likely to win the upper Midwest of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, particularly after the reaction against Scott Walker in Wisconsin spurred public opinion in favor of the rights of labor to collective bargaining.

North Carolina will be hard to hold on to in the South, but Virginia, with its northern areas bordering on the nation’s capital, and Florida, with South Florida a strong Democratic stronghold and growing anger against Rick Scott’s agenda in the Sunshine State, is also likely to stay Democratic.

In the Far West, it seems likely that Colorado and Nevada will stay Democratic, along with New Mexico, and that Arizona, a center of turmoil similar to Wisconsin and Florida, could go to the Democrats in a close finish.

Pennsylvania also seems likely to stay with the Democrats, as well as the Atlantic and Pacific Coast states.

In summary, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa may be lost, but Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada will likely stay with the Democrats, and Arizona and Missouri may switch, with Pennsylvania and Ohio seen likely to be a good possibility as well in a close race, with Ohio less likely to stay Democratic.

With the fact that Obama won 365 electoral votes in 2008, even the loss of a few states, but with a chance to gain other states, and with the reality that unemployment is now expected to dip to close to 7 percent by the fall of 2012, it seems clear that any Republican will have a rough time being elected President!

Interesting Conflicts Within Republican Presidential Field

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As one surveys the Republican Presidential race and potential opponents, there are several interesting conflicts that exist among the members of the field.

One is the battle between Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, both trying to appeal to the Tea Party favorites, and also being the potential only woman in the race, with Bachmann now seen as much more likely to run than Palin.

A second one is the battle for Southern support, among Newt Gingrich of Georgia, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, and Haley Barbour of Mississippi, with all three having major problems, but Gingrich and Huckabee flirting directly with “Birthers” and pushing the idea that, somehow, Barack Obama is not a true American, an idea which marginalizes both of them, and giving Barbour the edge.

A third is the battle for the Midwest, with Michele Bachmann a potential problem for Tim Pawlenty for social conservative support and Tea Party backing, but with Pawlenty seeming more responsible and more acceptable to many, and with many observers seeing him as having the fewest shortcomings of all the potential GOP candidates.

A fourth conflict is between the two Mormons in the race, both of whom neutral observers see as having the best chance to beat Barack Obama–Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, both former Governors, in Massachusetts and Utah, respectively. Both are very ambitious, but also very qualified, and have been rivals in the past, but Romney has the Massachusetts Health Care Plan as his Achilles Heel, while Huntsman has the issue of having been the US Ambassador to China for the past two years under President Obama. Their competition could be the most substantial and interesting of all of these rivalries, and the issue of whether being Mormons will be the fatal blow to their chances for the nomination.

So it will be a fascinating struggle to find who will be the GOP nominee against Obama, with eleven months to the first vote in the Iowa caucuses

150th Anniversary Of Jefferson Davis Inauguration As President Of The Confederacy Celebrated In Montgomery, Alabama

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This past weekend, the 150th Anniversary of the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy was celebrated in Montgomery, Alabama.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans organized the event, and several hundred attended.

No mention of slavery was found in the proceedings, only that the North had subjugated the South, and that the war was over tariffs, taxes, and states rights.

The War For Southern Independence was invoked as the appropriate name for the war, rather than the Civil War.

This kind of managed event will, unfortunately, still be prevalent over the next four years, as the re-enactments of Civil War battles and events will be constantly celebrated, instead of being seen as a great human tragedy.

The regionalism that still exists is very powerful, and the scars left from the Civil War continue to be an issue today in a different way.

It used to be the Republican Party who was hated and despised in the South, but now the Republicans have become dominant in the South, and it is the Democratic Party which is now seen as the “enemy” of the Southern heritage.

So a complete switch around has occurred, and one wonders what those who fought and died for the Union would think if they came back today and saw how politics have changed in the South!

90th Anniversary Of Woman Suffrage: The American South Tradition Of Human Rights Discrimination Remembered!

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Today, August 26th, marks the 90th Anniversary of Women Suffrage, the right of women to vote!

Somehow, when we look back, it is hard to believe that there was such strong resistance to this, as far back as 1848, right after the Seneca Falls, New York, Equal Rights Convention which started the suffrage fight!

The struggle went on for 72 years, and only came about as a result of World War I military contributions by women, and President Woodrow Wilson backing away from his earlier opposition to the 19th Amendment, finally endorsing it!

But still it took to 1920, and the final battle to win the 36th state, Tennessee, which was won by a state legislator who listened to his mother and cast the decisive vote!

What is often forgotten is that there were still 12 states that refused to accept the adopted amendment by ratifying it for a long time after 1920! They had to obey it and enforce the amendment, but they took decades to ratify it! 🙁 And nine of them were Southern states!

Imagine: Maryland in 1941, Virginia in 1952, Alabama in 1953, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina between 1969 and 1971, and Mississippi in 1984 finally ratified woman suffrage! 🙁

Notice that it was also the South, which was, of course, openly antagonistic to African American civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, and is still in many hidden ways working against it, now in the Republican party, instead of the Democratic party!

And what area of the country is most opposed to gay rights? Again, the South, which talks about “family values” and connects it to religion, wanting us to forget that it was religion that worked to keep women, African Americans, and poor people from voting in the South, and is now actively working against gay equality! 🙁

These “family values” in the South mean to keep women, African Americans, immigrants, and gays as second class citizens, unless the federal government interferes against “states rights”, meaning the power to discriminate! 🙁

The South may have lost the Civil War, but they have had tremendous impact in a negative way against the rights of women, African Americans, immigrants, the poor, and gay Americans over the decades since! Thank goodness that the US government has used its power and its influence, often belatedly, to enforce basic civil rights and civil liberties, overruling the false premise of “states rights”! 🙁