Carpetbaggers in Iraq: The South has Finally Won the Civil War
Brock A. Shaver
October 05, 2006
The South learned a lot of lessons from the American Civil War. I suspect they knew that carpetbagging Americans in Iraq would have the same effect as Northerners did in the old Confederacy after 1865.
Southerners got a big chuckle when Reconstruction failed after two terms of President U.S. Grant’s attempts to re-design society in the former slave states. It took the old South over a hundred years to get control of Washington, but they did it with the rise of the Religious Right’s political might in the Republican Party.
The Civil War was won by the power of business in the Union states. The South did not have the industry to compete. Neo-conservatives hate government, and so do fundamentalist Christians. Liberalism and government are synonymous to them. The only purpose of government is to impose theocratic laws and enforce them. By joining with business’s dislike of government, the two became a powerful combination to upset the balance of American democracy.
If Church and state could not unite, using business to do the Southern fundamentalist’s bidding to undermine the government was strategic genius. The South has effectively used the old North’s strength to corrupt Congress. Big money rules the capital.
The traditional balance of American democracy between government, business and the individual was reinforced by previous generations’ experience with the Great Depression and World War II. Business failed, and the war proved that government could work for the good of everyone in the country. It may not have been old style conservatism that wanted government small to restrict its abusive power. But for a while the balance was there, only in a bigger way. And the free press was still rabid enough to check the abuses of power. Ask Richard Nixon about Watergate.
This lesson has been lost. The Reagan Revolution used the political machinery of the Religious Right to cement its agenda for the last twenty years. It seemed innocuous enough during the Clinton administration. The Cold War had ended and there was peace.
But 9/11 changed all that. The coalition that the Religious Right helped to form has mutated the political culture in the United States. The military/security establishment has blossomed to the benefit of big business. Congress is actually considering diluting habeas corpus, the legal foundation that demands evidence before someone is convicted for a crime. It prevents tyranny by government. Corporate criminals are given light sentences in penal camps instead of penitentiaries (if not just house arrest). Torture is now acceptable. The President can break laws with impunity.
And the joke of reconstruction in Iraq is not lost on the descendants of the slave states, if they think about it. American business taking advantage of a war-torn country by moving in for profit is as intelligent as the carpetbaggers who flocked from the North to take advantage of the defeated South after the Civil War. The old Confederates resented their presence. And re-designing a society is a little more difficult than a federal army occupying a territory.
The phenomenon of the southern Religious Right, seen in its longer historical narrative, is quite enlightening. It seems that this time, the spirit from the South has done more damage to the Republic than General Robert E. Lee could have ever imagined possible. All that the South needed to do was leverage the North’s strength against itself and the Yankee government would self-destruct. With, of course, some help from other fundamentalists half-way around the world. It seems that no one in the United States has ever really lost a war now. The genes of the Confederacy has finally got its revenge.
General U.S. Grant calmly sits on his horse, while sucking on his cigar in front of the Capitol. I wonder what he would think about the prospects for reconstruction in the circus behind him.
Southerners got a big chuckle when Reconstruction failed after two terms of President U.S. Grant’s attempts to re-design society in the former slave states. It took the old South over a hundred years to get control of Washington, but they did it with the rise of the Religious Right’s political might in the Republican Party.
The Civil War was won by the power of business in the Union states. The South did not have the industry to compete. Neo-conservatives hate government, and so do fundamentalist Christians. Liberalism and government are synonymous to them. The only purpose of government is to impose theocratic laws and enforce them. By joining with business’s dislike of government, the two became a powerful combination to upset the balance of American democracy.
If Church and state could not unite, using business to do the Southern fundamentalist’s bidding to undermine the government was strategic genius. The South has effectively used the old North’s strength to corrupt Congress. Big money rules the capital.
The traditional balance of American democracy between government, business and the individual was reinforced by previous generations’ experience with the Great Depression and World War II. Business failed, and the war proved that government could work for the good of everyone in the country. It may not have been old style conservatism that wanted government small to restrict its abusive power. But for a while the balance was there, only in a bigger way. And the free press was still rabid enough to check the abuses of power. Ask Richard Nixon about Watergate.
This lesson has been lost. The Reagan Revolution used the political machinery of the Religious Right to cement its agenda for the last twenty years. It seemed innocuous enough during the Clinton administration. The Cold War had ended and there was peace.
But 9/11 changed all that. The coalition that the Religious Right helped to form has mutated the political culture in the United States. The military/security establishment has blossomed to the benefit of big business. Congress is actually considering diluting habeas corpus, the legal foundation that demands evidence before someone is convicted for a crime. It prevents tyranny by government. Corporate criminals are given light sentences in penal camps instead of penitentiaries (if not just house arrest). Torture is now acceptable. The President can break laws with impunity.
And the joke of reconstruction in Iraq is not lost on the descendants of the slave states, if they think about it. American business taking advantage of a war-torn country by moving in for profit is as intelligent as the carpetbaggers who flocked from the North to take advantage of the defeated South after the Civil War. The old Confederates resented their presence. And re-designing a society is a little more difficult than a federal army occupying a territory.
The phenomenon of the southern Religious Right, seen in its longer historical narrative, is quite enlightening. It seems that this time, the spirit from the South has done more damage to the Republic than General Robert E. Lee could have ever imagined possible. All that the South needed to do was leverage the North’s strength against itself and the Yankee government would self-destruct. With, of course, some help from other fundamentalists half-way around the world. It seems that no one in the United States has ever really lost a war now. The genes of the Confederacy has finally got its revenge.
General U.S. Grant calmly sits on his horse, while sucking on his cigar in front of the Capitol. I wonder what he would think about the prospects for reconstruction in the circus behind him.
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