30 replies to this topic

[joe00uk]

Yeah...no. There are definitely issues of race relations in this country, and there are certainly members of each race who'd want to stick to themselves, but the vast majority of each people still wants to coexist with the other peoples of the country. 

If most people want to coexist with other groups, then why do all these groups self-segregate? Why does white flight exist? Why do African-American and Hispanic people mainly choose to live among their own? Maybe, like Outlook says, there's something natural to this. I think it's rather insulting to African-American and Hispanic people to suggest they wouldn't be better off with their own nations.

[SeedNotYetSprouted]

 

Yeah...no. There are definitely issues of race relations in this country, and there are certainly members of each race who'd want to stick to themselves, but the vast majority of each people still wants to coexist with the other peoples of the country. 

If most people want to coexist with other groups, then why do all these groups self-segregate? Why does white flight exist? Why do African-American and Hispanic people mainly choose to live among their own? Maybe, like Outlook says, there's something natural to this. I think it's rather insulting to African-American and Hispanic people to suggest they wouldn't be better off with their own nations.

 

 

Coexistence is not the same as assimilation. It's more like pluralism. People may still want to live amongst their family and friends, but they won't react with revulsion or disgust when someone who happens to be two shades darker than them walks by. And vice versa. 

Also, I acknowledged that there was something natural to this with my chimp comment further down in that same post. That's why I believe that neurological metamorphosis is in order.

 

And to address Outlook: nothing is purely logical. Spock and the Vulcans don't exist. There's always some underlying emotion to one's thoughts. Therefore, we have the leeway to make the decision as to how we want to progress psychologically and morally. Tribalism does not have to exist given sufficient alternative modes of operation. A future being could do well without it.

[Erowind]

^ Why specifically death camps? Fascist Italy didn't even have concentration camps until the mid-1930s, but the British empire did in the 1890s, as did the USA in the 1940s (and arguably two during the Civil War).

Outgroup motivated genocide is where my brain goes to with fascism and there are empires that have certainly acted fascist. I don't know I could be wrong, I haven't actually put enough thought into this. It's not just concentration camps that signify fascism.

 

I suppose it's because fascism in my brain is a reaction to capitalist contradiction by capitalist systems. When the contradictions start unraveling themselves fascism reacts by trying to return to an idealized historical point that never actually existed. It does this by selecting and targeting certain outgroups and trends towards genocide as it tries to eliminate them, as the fascist regime pictures a given outgroup as the reason for its degeneration away from that idealized tradition. This doesn't work because the ideal of history is never the actual history, and what historical reality did exist can never be reclaimed because the conditions that created it no longer exist. This doesn't stop the fascist from trying though. As the elimination of one outgroup fails the regime moves on to another, and then another until eventually it starts eating itself entirely. If the Nazis had won WWII the genocide would not have stopped with the Jews and Slavs. It would have targeted other groups until it devolved so much that even Germans with Brown Hair would have eventually been targeted. This is the point (likely before even) at which the regime collapses in on itself because no country can sustain itself while genociding most of its population.

 

In that sense America is proto-fascist because it has established outgroups which it systemically targets but hasn't taken the full plunge into domestic genocide yet.

[Godstone]

Apparently, President Trump says he wants ANTIFA designated a terrorist organisation.

It won't happen, because there's not an organisation, but if the President wants those who are anti fascism to be declare terrorists then maybe a fascist USA isn't far off.

[caltrek]

This is roughly how I expect the US to balkanise based on current trends by the end of the century (I couldn't be bothered to do it literally county-by-county).

 

 

 

 

The problem with this map is that it is based on two at least partly contradictory premises:

 

1. That the country will balkanise.
2. That, except for the "American Republic" the most radical/progressive forces will win control in the respective regions where they live.

If the radical/progressive forces win across the board, then there will be no reason to balkanise.  Lumping progressive New England together with the more conservative Midwest, and then having New England in the subordinate position, just makes it seem more plausible.  In fact, there is no reason to believe that is how the split would play out. Certainly not initially.  

 

If balkanisation does occur, initially it will be the South that will be dominated by reactionary forces. Reactionaries will suppress the vote of blacks in their region and most likely suppress the vote of Hispanics in Texas, so that Texas will belong to the reactionary South instead of the progressive Latina West.  Florida  will be more likely to join the South because of vote rigging there, along with Latinos that are more conservative due to their  hostile memories of antipathy toward the Communists of Cuba.  The Midwest, with the possible exceptions of Wisconsin, Illinois and Colorado, will cast its lot with the South, or stop short of actually wanting to separate from the rest of the country.  There will be no reason for Washington and Oregon to separate itself from the Latina West.  Only geographic distance will separate the Pacific from the northern Atlantic coast, and that only if the Midwest joins with the South. 

 

If voter suppression efforts fail in Texas, Wisconsin, and Florida, then it is hard to see reactionary elements of the South becoming powerful enough to pull off a successful separatist movement. 

[caltrek]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note that Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois and some states in the northeast all have relatively large percentages of Hispanics, although not to the same extent as California, New Mexico, and Texas.

 

Source:  https://en.wikipedia...tino_population

[caltrek]

 

Percentage of population self-reported as African American by state in 2010       l ess than 2%   2–5%    5–10%    10–15%    15–20%    20–25%    25–30%    30–35%    35–40%

 

Source:https://en.wikipedia...USA_in_2010.svg

[caltrek]

When you compare the two maps and realize that in 2010 Texas had over 35% Hispanic and almost 12% African American you realize how vitally important it is to the reactionaries of that state to suppress voter turnout among those two minority groups.  Hispanics tend to be more conservative than blacks, but more liberal than whites. So they are not dependably reactionary enough to allow or encourage high voter turnout.  

[caltrek]

Oh hell, might as well throw Asians into the mix. It does help explain why California is so much more progressive than the rest of the country.

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia...ate_in_2010.svg

[caltrek]

Just in case you were starting to conclude that South Dakota and North Dakota must be lily white, you might want to check out the map  below.  Of course, no matter how you slice it, the actual percentage of population is pretty low, and it is only in comparison to other states that areas like North and South Dakota have a relatively high population of First Nation peoples (aka American Indian).

 

 

https://www.google.c...=MihcavO5brLySM

[caltrek]

If voter suppression efforts fail in Texas, Wisconsin, and Florida, then it is hard to see reactionary elements of the South becoming powerful enough to pull off a successful separatist movement. 

 

Of course, I probably should have written that a more likely scenario is: a separatist movement from the federal system of states fed up with the Electoral College system electing reactionaries, despite the actual popular vote. That, coupled with the Supreme Court completely emasculating the House of Representatives.