News & Analysis
Secession's Warning This Time
The hurricane of hatred that greeted Obama's election and the tsunami of slander since that has questioned his religion, his birthplace and his legitimacy show that, 150 years after the Civil War's end, many Americans fail to live up to Lincoln's noble aspirations. The scale of sublimated race hatred that underpins the birther movement and the numbers who consider the president to be alien or foreign betray widespread racial prejudice. Conservatives have demonized all successful liberal leaders, starting with Franklin Roosevelt and reaching fever pitch with Bill Clinton. But the visceral venom and dog-whistle racism directed toward Obama is even more intense. And directed toward a wider group of Americans. Not many are offended when FDR is attacked for being a traitor to his class. Clinton may have been half-jokingly dubbed the first black president, but conservatives didn't hate him for his skin tint. But when Obama is attacked for being black it is an offense against American ideals and an assault upon all blacks. – Reuters
Dominant Social Theme: Secession is not an option.
Free-Market Analysis: Recently, a Daily Bell editorial pointed out that a dominant social theme seemed to brewing as regarded the power elite and US secessionaist tendencies. You can see the editorial here:
The editorial quoted a Keene Sentinel article entitled, "Post-election secession talk misses the point," that reported on secession movements in the US and seemed to issue a veiled warning as well about what would happen to such movements.
Our editorial concluded: "The power elite behind globalist bigness will resist splintering tendencies at all cost. One hundred and fifty years ago they mounted a war to stop it. Violence lurks in the subtext of this editorial."
We see the same sort of dominant social theme being promulgated in this Reuters editorial. The hint of violence is faint right now but the uptick in mainstream articles about the looniness of secession is unmistakeable.
There is a subdominant social theme also inherent in this sort of coverage. It can be found in the background and conclusion of the Keene Sentinal article, as follows: "The re-election of President Barack Obama has prompted petition drives across the country for states to secede from the nation ... Their effort ignores the fact that the people have spoken – at the polls last week – and will have the opportunity to do so again every time an election rolls around."
This is fairly clear. The democratic process has worked and secession efforts or other kinds of programs that seek to undermine this process are illegitimate. If one wants another outcome, one will need to vote for one in a few years' time.
It is, in fact, a variant of another power elite meme focused on the idea that the people get the government they deserve. But this does not address the issue of what we call "directed history."
The powers-that-be have evidently and obviously attempted to shape society in a certain way, based on control of education and professional options. Almost anything involving any serious monetary endeavor ends up supporting the system as it is ... and the eventual goal that is apparently world governance.
It's very difficult to make changes from within the system. Only because of the Internet and what we call the Internet Reformation have we lately obtained even the vocabulary necessary to address issues of import – and growing concern.
Secession (or in some cases nullification) is a last resort for those frustrated by the system who see no way out. The re-election of Barack Obama has only provided additional impetus for dissatisfied conservatives and libertarians to particpate in seccessionist movements, or at least discuss creating or joining them.
Some 40 or so states now reportedly have active secessionist movements, though many are small and not well organized. Others, like the Texas movement, are significant. Nearly 100,000 have signed an online Texas petition for secession. New Hampshire and Vermont have well-established secession movements.
And now there is beginning to be elite pushback, in our view. The dialogue is joined. Attempts to manipulate public opinion are seemingly being employed. The initial tool of choice is the media (movies and television).
Later on, if the secession movements catch on, other forms of elite control will be exercised. Attempts will be made to co-opt the movements and replace their leaders. This is what happened to the so-called Tea Party movement in the US.
Right now we are seeing movies being made that glorify Lincoln. We've written about the movie that portrayed Lincoln as a vampire killer. And now there is this adulatory film, "Lincoln." Coincidence? Perhaps. But as meme-watchers we think we detect a trend. It has more to do with the issue of secession than Lincoln, however.
Major US movies often seek to communicate something beyond entertainment or even particular plot elements. There is often an underlying "messaging" that is being projected by blockbuster oriented films. Certainly Steven Spielberg, who directed and produced "Lincoln," is a blockbuster type of creator.
As his career has lengthened, Spielberg has created more and more movies directly associated with what we would call power elite memes. We would offer to our readers the idea that the current spate of Lincoln movies – and the celebration of Lincoln generally – is no accident. Here's some more from the article:
You have got to admire Steven Spielberg. He has taken the well-worn story of Abraham Lincoln's final days and turned it into a pointed piece of contemporary political commentary. When he first met Doris Kearns Goodwin back in 1999, well before she had completed her masterly account of the Lincoln White House, Team of Rivals, it seems Spielberg decided to film an episode in Lincoln's life that would ring true at the time of release many years later. He chose to concentrate his "Lincoln" movie on a pivotal time in the presidency: the final five months when Lincoln had just been re-elected, when the Civil War was all-but won, and when the fractious House was undecided about whether to fall in with Lincoln's stated aim of abolishing slavery.
There is an obvious comparison to today's politics, with President Barack Obama newly re-elected and facing a similarly hazardous short period to dragoon a recalcitrant and largely hostile House to do his bidding over taxes, entitlements and spending. Where Lincoln was working against the clock to ensure the Civil War would continue long enough to prevent Southern pro-slavers from returning to the Union Congress to wreck his plan to outlaw slavery, so Obama is teetering at the edge of a similarly perilous precipice. And just as Lincoln was surrounded in government by his old rivals, so Obama has as loyal lieutenants his former challengers for the Democratic candidacy, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton ... Whether Obama can pull off a similar coup and save America from a ruinous combination of high taxes and deep public spending cuts remains to be seen.
Spielberg's Lincoln is also an eloquent reminder that not long ago Republicans were the defenders of civil rights for all. The Party of Lincoln has long since turned its back on such noble thoughts and become a redoubt of grouchy old men bemoaning the fact that America, a nation of immigrants, has become a multicultural haven. What would Lincoln have made of the skulduggery and dissembling that led Republicans in so many states to hastily pass laws ostensibly to ward off voter fraud that are in fact shameless attempts to hinder the poor, the young, the old and those in racial minorities from using the ballot box? That pained groaning you hear is Honest Abe spinning in his tomb in Springfield, Illinois.
Lincoln has been built up in the US into a kind of secular saint. It has only been in the past decade that alternative views regarding Lincoln have emerged. A representative of big New York banks, Lincoln pressed Northern commercial advantages even when Southern legislators objected.
The Civil War emphatically was NOT about slavery, no matter how Spielberg and others present it. It was about ensuring that the US did not grow unimpeded into the world's most powerful republic. The Southern agrarian states with their Jeffersonian perspectives were a powerful threat to old Europe and the banking cartel that remains with us today.
After the Civil War, everything in the US changed, in our view. Big commercial banking took over the nation, corruption expanded financially and politically and the foundation for the current "empire" was laid. Southern resistance was at an end and European mercantilism ruled the day.
While millions died during the Civil War, the predominant culture of the US remained Jeffersonian and even agragrian. It is this cultural resonance that lingers today, especially in South, but in the North, in New England and in the Midwest as well.
While the US's relative prosperity covered over larger cultural stresses and strains, the North's long-ago victory did not fundamentally change US culture. There is still an agrarian/republican tenor to the US dialogue.
Hard times tend to exacerbate cultural dissonance. The US, as has been observed many times, is not one country but a number of cultural regions. As stresses build, elements of the populace will inevitably look favorably on secession. This trend is evident in Spain, China and numerous other countries.
Conclusion: This trend and the elite dominant social themes that will accompany it have not yet begun to play themselves out. In time they surely will. Movies will not stop it.
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Posted by Reader on 11/26/12 05:39 AM
Is it not true that the southern states had direct cotton trade with the money power in London? IS it not true this Cotton trade was part of a chain that linked the Africa slave trade, the Indian textile dumping trade, and ultimately, the Opium trade against China and the Chinese people?
I SUBMIT THAT THIS IS THE REAL STORY. Lastly, The North fought this money power in London PLUS the Southern POWERS and succeeded in creating a new powerful Union. DAILY BELL, PLEASE FIRE YOUR HISTORIAN/HISTORY CONSULTANT!
Reply from The Daily Bell
It was a banking war and the North (and Lincoln) were evidently and obviously a Euro-banking creation. To think the top elites of Europe and England backed the agrarian South is to misunderstand entirely what was occuring. Sure it may SEEM that way in retrospect, if one does a cursory inspection. But lift the covers and something more convoluted and horrible emerges...
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Posted by whatevertrevor on 11/25/12 06:18 PM
"Almost anything involving any serious monetary endeavor ends up supporting the system as it is ... and the eventual goal that is apparently world governance."
Amen.
I've only just come to this realisation over the past few months, finally put into crystal clarity by this website.
An astounding, yet completely daunting revelation.
Where have our lives gone? and where do we go from here?
I gues we'll just have to play it by ear from here on in.
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Posted by laceja on 11/24/12 07:18 PM
Yes indeed... The Nine Nations of North America.
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Posted by JustAnotherGuy on 11/24/12 02:36 PM
I'm not racist - just think a CIA agent should not be president. Whether it be George the Elder or O'bomber...
Reply from The Daily Bell
It seems clear he had Intel connecions before becoming US president ...
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Posted by plenarchist on 11/24/12 09:03 AM
Lincoln was a monster, a tyrant, and a white supremacist. The unconstitutional War to Prevent Southern Independence was not about slavery - it was a blatant war to rape and pillage the south. Lincoln committed treason by invading the south. Read Lincoln's 1st inaugural address... his official reason for war was tax collection. Lincoln was prepared to make slavery permanent in the slave states had they not seceded. The so-called Emancipation Proclamation didn't free a single slave - it was a piece of cynical war propaganda. Lincoln was against expanding slavery into the western territories not because he was against slavery but because he was promoting the interests of northern cronies. He wanted to send all blacks back to Africa to prevent mixing of the races. Lincoln also urged the ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples of the western plains to steal their lands. The rest of the world including northern states ended slavery peacefully. Lincoln "freed the slaves" by enslaving a nation and destroying our voluntary union of states. He was a role model for Stalin and Hitler. So, pray to your Lincoln idol if you wish, but it's devil worship if you do.
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Posted by provolone on 11/24/12 06:33 AM
I have always been disturbed by the attempts to tie anyone who would seek a less centralized form of government to racism. The coverage omits a discussion about the substance of secession, while playing to partisan stereotypes. Unfortunately, many of the comments below reinforce those same counterproductive themes.
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Posted by kaydellc on 11/24/12 12:29 AM
This article is pure BS as to people who disagree with the policies; the lies, the coverup; and appeasement to the radial Muslims are somehow racists. President Obama promised in 2008 as to working together which did not happen. His way or the highway for the first two years as it is now. He is the most radical president since my lifetime and has created the current problem. So your article is BS.
Reply from The Daily Bell
It is not just Muslims ...
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Posted by Danny B on 11/23/12 11:39 PM
Racism is the first claim when simple slander doesn't seen strong enough. You don't like obummer so you obviously must be racist. PATHETIC.
America has had some excellent statesmen like Franklin. Lincoln was backwoods educated with no depth. I imagine he was an OK guy but he didn't have the perspicacity to see how he was being maneuvered. The perfect president.
Slavery was inefficient and was giving way to wage-slavery. War is referred to as failed diplomacy. France eliminated slavery without a war. America could have done the same. Elimination of slavery wasn't the main objective of the bankers.
Lincoln was in the pocket of the bankers unlike Jackson.
England had always claimed that they would regain control of the colonies. The articles of confederation left too much freedom to the individual states. That had to be remedied.
"weakness of this form of government caused the leaders of the time to come together at the Constitutional Convention and create, in secret, the US Constitution. Strong proponents of states rights like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry were not present at this meeting."
Click to view link
Lincoln felt that the states would go all-slave or all-free. He felt that the North had to force the issue. Apparently, he never felt that the North had any right to do this but, he just went ahead.
Click to view link
The North couldn't prove any constitutional authority so they just fell back on force. Ft. Sumpter proved to be adequate provocation even though there were no casualties. It's been downhill ever since.
Reply from The Daily Bell
"I imagine he was an OK guy but he didn't have the perspicacity to see how he was being maneuvered."
He sure killed a lot of people ...
See this re the beginning of the Civil War ...
Click to view link
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Posted by davidbruce on 11/23/12 09:31 PM
It looks to me like a wave of Altruistic Punishment is about to engulf the United States. The fiscal cliff has been set up for a deadly austerity package while ObamaCare and the NDAA would have made Hitler blush. The Supreme Court is not all that supreme, are they not just flesh and blood? None of the honorable members of Congress have any honor left, if they ever had any. A new Civil war looks good to me. Who among your Feedbackers has the courage to stand up and fight? Where will the future history books say the first shot of the second Civil War was fired? West, by God, Virginia!
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Posted by Robert Eastman on 11/23/12 08:57 PM
Racism IS rampant in the U.S. and the election/re-election of Obama IS PROOF! No
white person with the exact same resume as Obama would have had enough support to make it past the first primary. He only got elected because the color of his skin is black! Martin Luther King is "turning over in his grave" in shameful disgust!
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Posted by SSMcDonald on 11/23/12 07:39 PM
Black?? Who cares?? I don't like the 50% of him that is white either. So let the media cease with its racist pandering. This guy is a liberal hippie, commie, pinko, leftist, Muslim disaster for any thinking person in the USA. And lest I leave out Reuters; they reek of their unending bias and bigotry.
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Posted by Bluebird on 11/23/12 05:16 PM
Reuters is spreading it on thick, no? Better get those waders! I expect we will hear more and more of these threats, as the "president of the world" swoops in for round two. When you have lost your freedom, what do you have to lose? Their threats are just not going to work on a fed up world.
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Posted by jwhitehawke on 11/23/12 04:52 PM
It isn't about his Muslimism. It's not about him cowering and bowing to Arab leaders. It's more than his 'coming out of nowhere' from Kenya. It's more than him stepping on the constitutional values. It's more than preparing military for martial law. It's more than signing the NDAA, HR347, B1505. More than falling in with the UN arms treaty. More than formalizing Agenda 21. More than allowing QE3. More than continuing the fiscal cliff.
WAIT! It's all of it!
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Posted by kapie9969 on 11/23/12 04:42 PM
While im sure there are plenty of people who dont like Obama because he is black. Most people just dont like his thinking and his actions.I really have gotten tired of a president who is beyond critique.Theres so much wrong with the man,theres to much to list here.
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Posted by Abu Aardvark on 11/23/12 04:24 PM
@ 1776 on 11/23/12 03:31 PM
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Yeah, tip of the hat to General Wesley Clark - disinformation as an art form ...
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Posted by jim123 on 11/23/12 03:37 PM
This IDIOT can put his Racist Crap where the sun doesn't shine along with all of the other Socialist GOONS!! The hurricaine of protest is NOT, i repeat NOT RACIAL, it is Pro American and ANTI SOCIALIST against an Anti American SOCIALIST who has from day one, Destroyed our Great country!! I would GLADLY vote for West,Rice, Cane who,,,, WHOA ,,, happen to be BLACK!! Kinda puts you RACIST MORONS where you belong in the GUTTER, where you came from!! Including the BIGGEST RACIST of ALL, ole barry, the ILLEGAL LIAR in chief pres!! IMPEACH!
Reply from The Daily Bell
It is a kind of reverse racism ...
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Posted by 1776 on 11/23/12 03:31 PM
General Wesley Clark: Because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11.
About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, "Sir, you've got to come in and talk to me a second." I said, "Well, you're too busy." He said, "No, no." He says, "We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq." This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, "We're going to war with Iraq? Why?" He said, "I don't know." He said, "I guess they don't know what else to do." So I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?" He said, "No, no." He says, "There's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." He said, "I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments." And he said, "I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail."
Click to view link
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Posted by KyfhoMyoba on 11/23/12 03:29 PM
Let's not forget that Doris Kearns Goodwin is an admitted plagiarist, and paid in the six figures in damages to her victim.
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Posted by budwood on 11/23/12 02:53 PM
We need to face up to the fact that the USA is a dysfunctional conglomeration of diverse geographical entities which is ready to blow apart. As the main stream press minions state, the people have spoken. Indeed they have; just look at a map showing a solid "red states" band through the center of the "U"SA and pretty much solid "blue states" on the peripheries. Let's be aware of that fact.
Further, is there any reason not to consider a person raised in a muslin school, in Indonesia, a foreigner? There's no argument as to where Obama's upbringing was implemented. Why not take any foreigner and vote him (or her) into office as the political chief of the USA, residing far from any "red states", in D.C.?
And what is sacred about having a collective of more than 300,000,000 people? It's obvious that they're not going in the same direction. Merely the hate from various groups emphasize that.
Yes, even in our own small family group there are disagreements. No, not on whether the "U"SA will implode but when. My guess is that there will be no meaningful federal election in 2016.
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Posted by speedygonzales on 11/23/12 01:26 PM
The United States Army is developing a weapon that can reach -- and destroy -- any location on Earth within an hour. At the same time, power lines held up by wooden poles dangle over the streets of Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey. Hurricane Sandy ripped them apart there and in communities across the East Coast last week, and many places remain without electricity. That's America, where high-tech options are available only to the elite, and the rest live under conditions comparable to a those of a developing nation. No country has produced more Nobel Prize winners, yet in New York City hospitals had to be evacuated during the storm because their emergency generators didn't work properly.
Anyone who sees this as a contradiction has failed to grasp the fact that America is a country of total capitalism. Its functionaries have no need of public hospitals or of a reliable power supply to private homes. The elite have their own infrastructure. Total capitalism, however, has left American society in ruins and crippled the government. America's fate is not just an accident produced by the system. It is a consequence of that system.
A Powerless President
Romney, the exceedingly wealthy business man, and Obama, the cultivated civil rights lawyer, are two faces of a political system that no longer has much to do with democracy as we understand it. Democracy is about choice, but Americans don't really have much of a choice. Obama proved this. Nearly four years ago, it seemed like a new beginning for America when he took office. But this was a misunderstanding. Obama didn't close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, nor did he lift immunity for alleged war criminals from the Bush-era, or regulate the financial markets, and climate change was hardly discussed during the current election campaign. The military, the banks, industry -- the people are helpless in the face of their power, as is the president.
From a European perspective, it doesn't matter who wins this election. Only US foreign policy is important to us -- and Obama is no dove and Romney no hawk. The incumbent president prefers to wage his wars with drones instead of troops, though the victims probably don't care if they're killed by man or machine. Meanwhile, despite all the criticism, his challenger says he wouldn't join Israel were the country to go to war with Iran because the US can now no longer afford such a thing.
Wawa viva! Click to view link
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