Dixie
If you are a Southern conservative who wants to learn more about the origins of the Sunbelt South, don’t waste your time on James C. Cobb’s The South and America Since World War II.
This book is a partisan rant written by an aggrieved White Democrat who is obviously writing for a more sympathetic Northern audience. The liberal bias of the author and his narrow selection of topics which are used to frame the history of the South since World War II will constantly annoy Southern readers.
Most of James C. Cobb’s readers will already know that Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi in 1955. The real story of the Till murder though was less “the savagery of some white southerners racial passions” than the fact that lynching was almost non-existent in the South by the 1950s.
It is precisely this kind of maddening selection bias and tendency to generalize from highly unrepresentative samples which obscures the true history of the South since World War II underneath a fog of liberal newsreels and soundbytes from the 1960s. The SPLC can only come up with 13 civil rights martyrs in Alabama over a period of 13 years. There were 75 mostly black homicides in Birmingham alone in 2012.
For every Selma or Birmingham there were thousands of Southern cities, small towns, public schools, and universities that were integrated without any violence whatsoever because MLK and his entourage didn’t show up there to perform stunts on television for the benefit of CBS News.
The story of the realignment of the “Solid South” from the Democrats to the Republicans is also much more complex than the myth that it was simply a backlash against the Civil Rights Movement. Most Southern segregationists like Gov. George Wallace and Sen. Richard Russell stuck with the Democratic Party after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The South didn’t tilt to the GOP in Congress until the 1990s or in most of the state legislatures until the 2000s.
LBJ defeated Barry Goldwater in 1964 with the support of most of the Southern states. Jimmy Carter won every Southern state but Virginia and Oklahoma in 1976. Reagan’s landslides were national in scope. Bill Clinton won Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and Georgia in 1992. Clinton lost Georgia but carried Florida in 1996. Gore was competitive in Tennessee in 2000.
There are exasperating episodes in this book that are dealt with at length like the controversy surrounding the “South Carolina Is Gay” campaign or whether Montgomery County High School in south Georgia is holding a segregated prom which are so unrepresentative of daily life in the modern South that the reader just wants to toss this book into the garbage.
You can’t read The South and America Since World War II without getting the sense that blacks, women, gays and other Democratic leaning constituencies along with conforming to the mores of the Northeastern liberal establishment are the measure of all things. This comes across clearly in the chapter “A Favorable Business Climate” which exaggerates the environmental damage caused by industrial development in the Sunbelt South.
The left leaning bias in this book gets so bad that Cobb even gives credence to paranoid conspiracy theories that the levées in New Orleans were blown up after Katrina to rid the city of black people. He seems furious that state spending on food stamps and welfare are significantly below the national average in Mississippi. Supposedly, this is part of a plot to encourage blacks to move out of state.
After putting this book down, I was left wondering why topics like the decline of Birmingham since 1979 or the violent crime epidemic in New Orleans and Memphis or the failure of Head Start and integrated schools to close the racial gap in test scores wasn’t dealt with at greater length, as opposed to, say, George Allen’s “macaca” comment or Harold Ford, Jr.’s heartbreaking loss to Bob Corker in Tennessee.
Then I remembered it is up to people like us to do the job that James C. Cobb won’t do. You don’t become your “generation’s leading interpreter of the South” in Black Run America by violating the dominant culture’s racial etiquette. Instead, you call Fannie Lou Hamer “a warrior for change” and the most “vital and genuinely passionate voice for racial justice in the post-World War II South.”
Note: The argument that the South is perfectly willing to accept farm subsidies, transportation funds, and military spending while condemning the “big government” that lifted the region out of poverty has merit.
I also agree that the Southern “right-to-work” states subsidize multinational corporations in order to promote industrial development. It is too bad that this book lacked the more objective tone of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Agriculture & Industry.
@HW: If you are wondering why your other site is getting so few comments, it’s because it’s almost impossible to post a comment there. I’ve tried several times and always gave up. Might check this out if I were you. Thanks for your efforts.
Here’s a chapter he left out: http://withoutsanctuary.org/
A smaller secession.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/01/22/U-K-PM-David-Cameron-To-Let-Citizens-Vote-On-Leaving-The-EU
It’s funny how Southern accents are “good” if the speaker’s black. Then they exaggerate them, like Obama did, speaking in Selma. The more pronounced the southern accent, for a black person, the More Oppressed, (and a better “Marxist.”)
The only ex-sharecropper I know, is White, btw.
And if Monsanto owns it, it is a “farm.” lol
If White people began ragging about all the bad things that have happened to them, and all the people they’ve known who were victims of “home invasions,” or how they were, and violent crimes, which are construed publicly as “vigilante violence” (what do you expect, given the past of these poor souls?) — people would be amazed at what they have endured. (rapes, kidnappings of children, destruction of their communities, destruction of their churches, job loss, loss of opportunities, heavy taxation, uncaring governance, etc, etc…)
White people will never offer such “testimony” however. To gain moral authority on that basis is, generally, against their code. They are an incredibly silent people. Which is where Ghandi got the idea, from Tolstoy I think.
HW- While I am glad that you continue to enlighten the rest of us, it seems pointless to post the same articles on both this, and your sister site, thus a) creating double work with .5 the benefit, and b) diluting the ‘discussion’ on any pertinent topic you may think worthy.
Just my two cents.
America is dead. Long Live King Jesus. May he smite the Obmanation and utterly destroy her, and all her apostate peoples. Amen.
The two-site strategy… idk, I continued reading here.
Btw, thanks HW for mentioning The Other Irish. Am reading it now, and just as you say, an enjoyable, breezy read.
Cobb is nothing more than an anti-white, it all boils down to that. His colored folk/pets could rape the land and he would be in a state of bliss as far as they are concerned.
Don’t get wrapped up into their dabblings and start tailgating some tertiary issues.
In response to the many calls for gun control on numerous comment boards I’ve come up with a new meme. “Don’t trust anyone over 50.”
This came about in examining the irony of the same crowd responsible for creating this mess is now calling for taking our guns because they don’t feel safe.
I then started on a “Baby Boomer Truth and Reconciliation Petition” I was hoping to put on the White House site.
The idea was they would exchange the keys to the kingdom for a promise by the rest of us that we would allow shroom tea and orgy rooms in their nursing homes, as long as they worked until they were 80 at 90% taxation to pay off the debt they created.
The points were like: “We’re sorry we thought we were the first humans on planet earth to discover sex was fun and then wrapped the entire country around that philosophy.” It goes on. Obviously it will never get done but if anyone is so inclined it would be awesome. At the very least we can spread this meme.
The hippy boomers took over the country through generational warfare — “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” I think we should take it back, sectionally or wholesale, using the same tactics. They can’t denigrate the same tactics they threw at the world. They’ll laugh, say “busted,” and hand over the keys. At the very least perhaps we can cause them some severe discomfort. Plus, it’s true. It’s not unlike the young nationalist movement in France.
This is relevant to this topic because this book reeks of Boomer scum nonsense and would probably, though I haven’t checked, be summed up under the “don’t trust anyone over 50” rubric.
James Cobb is billed as a “native” of the South.
Bet he isn’t. Many are born there, some even have a couple generations under their belt but they CAN NEVER BE SOUTHERNERS, imo.
Really—- the “south” was the pre-war south, and the people who underwent that, reconstruction and the rest, the people who actually fought in the war.
No one outside those groups can be that now. Many like Cormac McCarthy and others are billed as “natives” or parsed out that way, to speak for “rednecks” like Jim Goad—- but none of them are from that experience, really.
It’s like they cannot stand their own history, maybe, whatever it is.
Anyway, bet this guy is one of those—- in the “south” after 1865.
Children of carpetbaggers and this kind of thing. They believe just being in a land space, that they are “traditional” (lol) makes them similar. It’s odd to co-opt others’ history, if you think about it.
Want to jump in here a little:
Note: The argument that the South is perfectly willing to accept farm subsidies, transportation funds, and military spending while condemning the “big government” that lifted the region out of poverty has merit.
accept farm subsidies: A majority of these farm subsidies funds go into the pockets of huge companies like Monsanto, this is a form of National Corporate Welfare, which is not specific to, or particularly beneficial to, the South. The south would be better off without the subsidy and the regulations that go along with them. If you haven’t been keeping track, the EPA over the last few years tried to regulate, Hay, Milk, and Dirt as pollutants.
transportation funds: Most of these funds go into supporting and subsidizing big transportation departments of BRA cities to the benefit of blacks. SBPDL covered this a few times in their articles. These funds would not be missed by regular southerners.
military spending while condemning the “big government”: I really don’t understand the criticism here, this is one of the few actually legitimate constitutional uses of government funds. In any case, military spending is shrinking, while spending on non-constitutional programs is growing vastly.
Off topic:
“Jan. 23, 2013, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement blasting the House of Representatives for suspending the debt ceiling until May 19, 2013 through passage of H.R. 325:
[…]
“it means, come May 19, the debt ceiling must be reinstated. Otherwise, House Republicans will have ceded their constitutional authority over fiscal matters to the executive, marking an end to representative government in any true sense.”
http://tinyurl.com/b6r5fcv
_______________
So goes the Union, eh?
Peak Finance writes:
“military spending while condemning the “big government”: I really don’t understand the criticism here, this is one of the few actually legitimate constitutional uses of government funds. In any case, military spending is shrinking, while spending on non-constitutional programs is growing vastly.”
Jack responds:
OK I’ll explain it to you. The United States spends more on military spending than almost the entire world combined. Little or really no part of this huge budget expenditure has anything to do with AMERICAN national defense, we don’t use our miltary to defend our borders, fightinvading Mexian cartels, it’s all for Neo Con wars for Israel, slaughtering our European kinsmen the Serbs, still fighting the Cold War against our Europen kinsmen the Russians. So basically the US entire Defense budget is a waste.
Yea, I am not a big fan of military interventionism either, no arguments there!
But when the South is attacked on this issue, the context seems to be economic, not political. I think they are attacking military spending specifically in the South, on Southern Bases, and on the Military Factories building stuff for the army which reside in the South. I personally believe these are a legitimate use of funds, more-so than Welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, SS, and the 1,000 other bullshit programs the Feds force on us.
He’s just a Southern liberal like his hero Jimmy Carter.
He a sexual revolutionary posing as an academic.
You can tell because nobody can write tomes of lengthy nonsense about excusing accountability unless you are running from accountability yourself, or seek to further a culture of sexual revolution in which accountability is impossible, because that is the culture in which your own deviance prospers. Look at the guy. He’s a total piece of shit. He’s the real picture of BRA.
it’s all for Neo Con wars for Israel
Please read OD guidelines about conspiracy theories.
Good job Tamer we wouldn’t want any naughty thoughts about our elder brothers in the faith now would we. If you are not on the Israelis payroll you really should be.
“You can tell because nobody can write tomes of lengthy nonsense about excusing accountability unless you are running from accountability yourself, or seek to further a culture of sexual revolution in which accountability is impossible, because that is the culture in which your own deviance prospers. Look at the guy. He’s a total piece of shit. He’s the real picture of BRA.”
You’re right. The whole BRA is about escaping accountability, and every time reality rears its head and shoots a hole in the sinking hulk, they rush to plug the leak with bucket-fulls of cash. What happens when that tactic no longer works, because the cash is worthless?
It’s going to end the same way every sexual revolution ends: Blood-soaked depravity and complete loss of sovereignty.
There’s point to adopt false leftist rhetoric about Israel dominating the US. It makes Westerners look silly, just the same as when Westerners celebrate Milosevic and Putin.
America’s fag army is in the grubby black paws of the American voter. The Israel lobby exists because the American voter is too stupid and too dark to be pro-Israel. I’d prefer a high IQ cabal but alas it is not so. There are dozens of powerful lobbies on K Street. The Israel lobby spends a good chunk of its aid on BRAmerican materiel. It’s a well-organized lobby that reduces the harm the new anti-colonist BRA would surely inflict on Israel. It’s a shame South Africa didn’t have such a lobby.
*no point
@RobRoySimmons
‘Tis why I suggested the idea of selling DWLs into African slavery. Would that wake them up?
There’s point to adopt false leftist rhetoric about Israel dominating the US.
Disparagement of leftism: check.
It makes Westerners look silly, just the same as when Westerners celebrate Milosevic and Putin.
Disparagement of communists: check.
America’s fag army is in the grubby black paws of the American voter.
Disparagement of homosexuals and negroes: check.
The Israel lobby exists because the American voter is too stupid and too dark to be pro-Israel.
Disparagement of democracy and non-whites: check.
I’d prefer a high IQ cabal but alas it is not so.
Reference to IQ: check.
There are dozens of powerful lobbies on K Street.
Denial of Jewish particularity via general disparagement of “lobbies”: check.
[The Israel lobby is] a well-organized lobby that reduces the harm the new anti-colonist BRA would surely inflict on Israel.
Disparagement of anti-colonialism and BRA: check.
It’s a shame South Africa didn’t have such a lobby.
Reference to plight of whites in South Africa: check.
Congratulations, Tamer: that’s a remarkable amount of right-wing subtext in just two short paragraphs. You’ve successfully inoculated this site against antisemistism for, at least, an hour or two. Your work for the day is done.
@LandShark
I believe if 1/4th of all Boomer women dropped dead before election day we’d have Ron Paul instead.
Carter never made it to scallawaggery?
Militarism is a long term trend that goes back to the war economy of WW1. It is really just a positive feedback loop of war stimulating government spending and economic growth while driving the development of new technologies.
The Israeli lobby White America’s new best friend bravo Tamer bravo. If you give me the e-mail to your Israeli handler I will recommend you for a raise you deserve it. If you could remind me what are you supposed to be are you a Northerner that really likes the South or are you Southerner who move up North it’s OK if you have to check your notes before you respond.
Landshark: Right on! I hope with every fiber of my being that the Babyboomer generation does not pass away in peace. They, and their elders the so called greatest generation bear a very large share of the blame for the sorry situation of their grandchildren all for their GD Social Security checks. I’ve met too many with the “I got mine” attitude.
I’m reading “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” by John m. Keynes. I’m no fan of Keynes, but he lays bear the ugly underbelly of the Allie victory over Germany, and how Germany was both double crossed and railroaded. Combine that with America being tricked into that war and you quickly understand how quickly the rot progressed after the War Between the States. Sadly, as Keynes says, it is much harder to de-bamboozle than to bamboozle the idiocracy.
It seems that all our arguments go back to WWII, and to WWI before that, and finally the Civil War. The right side winning that would have prevented that Chubby Rough Rider from charging up San Juan Hill, it would have prevented that Presbyterian do-gooder from getting us into WWI, which would have forced Britain and France into a reasonable peace, avoiding WWII and the 3rd world-I action of the West.
Did I mention that the Lusitania was indeed carrying ammo? Think about that. The supposed good guys were using a supposed passenger liner to carry war supplies to a belligerent when we were supposedly neutral.
I trace the arguments back to when a young PrussianCroat decided to take LSD and play RISK.
In retrospect there was nothing particularly bad about Carter.
Wayne,
I contend thant there would be no centralized Germany had the US split in 1861. The Second Reich was a copycat of Lincoln and Grant’s state. indeed it formed in the years immediately after the union bashed in the Confederacy’s skull.
In the words of Bob Dole, Jimmy Carter was nothing more than Southern-fried McGovern.
I contend there’d be no US emancipation if Alexander II didn’t free the smurfs.
He rushed his fleet to NYC and SF which detered the French and English from siding with the Confederates.
France and England wouldn’t have made any difference in the war. They would have gotten their asses kicked right alongside the rebels. England in particular knew this, as they has lost two wars with America in the space of a century, and that’s the reason they stayed out of it.
Christ 313: England is the mother of our country, or at least what used to be our country. Any ethnicity who has come here and taken advantage of the framework they laid down for us, yet is disrespectful to them, is part of the larger problem.
The Spanish seeded Mexico, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.
The Portuguese seeded Brazil.
The English seeded Canada, US, Australia and New Zealand.
Which ones were successful? How can we not be thankful for our English motherland?
@Wayne
I’m not English, and England isn’t my motherland. I have one country and one ethnicity and this is it.
I agree with that Wayne. It just makes a nice simple package though to aim at the enemy right here and now, whose crap that everyone remembers, call them out and ideologically marginalize them. It’s really low-hanging fruit, and let’s face it, everyone loves to hate the boomers. They’re also the crowd that is generally salivating over taking the guns as the crowning achievement of their generation. Plus, we take as our allies those dead or alive that were cast aside as they cleansed the academy. Who stood up for them? Did that stop them?
That could give us two huge victories: ending the sexual revolution and returning to traditional sexual mores, and regaining freedom of association.
Don’t trust anyone over 50. That’s the new mantra.
Sorry Chris, have to take the Confederate side against you. England lost wars where the North and South were on the same side; and in the Revolution, they were fighting against France and Spain as well
Chris: England provided the foundation of our society here, including the laws, government, language, culture and in the beginning, people. Of all the colonial powers England was by far the best to her colonies. If today’s immigrants respected that, we would not be in such a situation, because by the same logic you say England is not our mother country, the 3rd world riff raff say that America is not a Western/European country. See how that works? And save your fingers the work of your normal stubborn, head in the sand comebacks–we see what those got you with Romney.
That’s simply not true Chris.
The naval balance of power was fundamentally important in the Revolutionary war. France made Yorktown possible.
If France and Britain had steamed their naval forces in to open up Confederate ports the Southerners would have been formidable and strong enough to force the North to the peace table.
Chris is a truly ignorant piece of shit. One reason why the US has driven into a ditch is the ideas rattling around in his thick skull. Invading Iraq and supporting black paracites.
“And save your fingers the work of your normal stubborn, head in the sand comebacks–we see what those got you with Romney.”
I assume that refers to Chris expecting a Romney victory in Michigan. His prediction was really NOT unrealistic. The rural counties of his state, as in most states, went for Romney, and Chris’ immediate contacts may have voted overwhelming so. Many of us were surprised.
Re: “England is the mother of our country”:
Germanic immigration was the mother of England, making that part of the island different from the rest.
Alexander II and Lincoln’s war: http://hilo.hawaii.edu/academics/hohonu/documents/Vol10x19TsarAlexanderIIandPresidentAbrahamLincoln.pdf
Perhaps so perhaps not on the German thing. Either way the institutional frame work seems to be derived from England. The Scots attempted to start a colony in Derien but it failed. The colonies set up by other Europeans states were unsuccessful.
That is “DArien,” and thanks, most interesting, John.
“The colonies set up by other Europeans states….” Even more off topic, I know tall blond people in Delaware proudly descended from the New Sweden colony. They have not forgotten their history.