Some idiot government official in Arizona ranted that because Los Angeles had passed a resolution condemning Arizona's racist "if you're brown, don't come 'round" law, Arizona, which provides 20% of LA's power, should cut off that 20% and put LA into the dark. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has a simple retort to that: Suck it. We actually own *your* power.
Methinks that Gary Pierce, the moron Arizona power commissioner making this threat, doesn't know who he's messing with. LADWP has more people within its service area than the entire state of Arizona, and has more power -- political power, police power, legal power, the works -- than probably the entire State of Arizona has at its disposal. These are some seriously competent, ruthless, and vicious people who have turned entire regions of California such as the Owens Valley into dessicated deserts in order to steal their water for Los Angeles and laughed at the little people who tried to stop them. It does not surprise me in the least that they have their legal i's dotted and t's crossed regarding their generation assets in Arizona.
So there is simply no legal way for Arizona to cut off LA's power. The only way that Arizona is going to cut off LA's power is via an act of illegal terrorism, and these small-dick wonders don't have the guts for that kind of thing. Remember, these are folks who cower in terror of brown people from Mexico. They might talk tough, but in the end, they're cowards. And LADWP gives'em the middle finger accordingly. Good for them!
- Badtux the Amused Penguin
So little by little, the fractures in the "United" States grow larger. This will not be a cause of the break-up. Neither will the next one, or the one after that, or the next times 10. But more and more, politicians and people are thinking of the USA not in terms of "my country" but in terms of "my region" or "my ideology."
ReplyDeleteI've had a half-century on this Earth, Tux, much the same as you. I remember the scorn heaped on the South, especially Alabama, during the civil rights fights of the 1960s. I remember the hatred heaped on segments of society like the dirty hippie youth. But correct me if I'm wrong -- not since the principle of "punish that rebellious South" was dropped as a mindset in the 1920s has the regional animosity been so strong. The idea of "Fuck it -- we're outta this country!" is getting more popular.
My question is, as it has been before: when it happens, will the U.S. be more Czechoslovakia, or more Yugoslavia? My bet's on the Yugo...
Neither. The breakup of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were caused by internal ethnic tensions between distinct ethnic groups with distinct cultures and historically distinct nationalities. But if you take the typical Arizona resident and stand him beside the typical Orange County resident, there will be little difference between the two ethically or culturally.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the "punish the rebellious South" mentality, that had largely evaporated by 1876, nevermind the 1920's. 1876 was the centennial celebration of the United States of America, for which the Statue of Liberty was donated to America by France (albeit only its torch made it to New York in time for the celebration). It was also the year of the Hayes-Tilden Compromise, which removed Federal troops from the South and re-installed the former Confederates as rulers of their respective states as long as they pretended to be part of the United States and pretended to not have slavery. National division of the sort that results in armed troops being required internally in order to maintain order is *expensive*, and against the national religion of the United States, which is the worship of the Almighty. The Almighty Dollar, that is.
So unlike you, I'm not seeing it. The national religion of the United States has proven too strong a unifying force in the past, and unless the majority of Americans suddenly change their values drastically from worshipping vapid consumerism to having some real ideology, I don't see that changing.
- Badtux the Culture Penguin
"... And high above my eyes could clearly see / The Statue of Liberty / Sailing away to sea..." - P. Simon
ReplyDeleteand unless the majority of Americans suddenly change their values drastically from worshipping vapid consumerism to having some real ideology, I don't see that changing.
ReplyDeleteBut, is that the real requirement? As the lower class is further impoverished, and the middle class is tamped down into the place formerly occupied by the poor, do you really believe consumerism has a future?
I really do believe in capitalism, but - to use an analogy that occurred to me recently - it is like an unruly 2 Yr old who needs needs oversight and regulation - constantly and by the fucking boatload.
But - that aint happenin'. The pos - both parties - are in the pockets of business; whose brilliant minds run American industry with a strategic horizon the ends at the next quarterly statement. They cannot see that in the long - or even relatively short run - they are fucking themselves over.
And us along with them, of course,
JzB
"Regarding the "punish the rebellious South" mentality, that had largely evaporated by 1876"
ReplyDeleteInteresting that the occupation of the south lasted 9 years. I'm not sure if you'd call it an occupation, but Afghanistan is almost 9, while Iraq is at 7.
Careful scientific research on my part reveals that somewhere around 9, 10 or so is the magic number. Whatever you tried worked, or, more likely, whatever you tried didn't work & it's time to GTFO.
Pitchforks & Torches. Once the shortage of pitch forks and torches is over-come, then the plutocrats will be trouble. Well... that is... if American's can put down their PSPs, and iPods, and TV remotes, and bags of cheetos, long enough to grab a pitchfork.
ReplyDeleteLiving in AZ I am embarrassed by the extremists all around me. I heard yesterday on the radio "Barry Goldwater could not get elected today as a Republican, the AZ Rep party has moved that far to the right". And Goldwater was far to the right of saviour Reagan.
JustJoe, Reagan and Goldwater were two peas in a pod, the differences between them in their political prime were minimal. The difference is that Goldwater eventually grew up and did some decent things like create Phoenix's desert preserves system and change his mind on civil rights and gay rights, while Reagan never did.
ReplyDeleteDopeAddict, I would call it an occupation. The Republican governments elected by the black majority in the South were under constant threat from the former Confederate Army, which had largely deserted with their weapons and gone home months before the final surrenders (General Johnston's Army of North Carolina had 120,000 soldiers on paper, but all but around 15,000 of them had deserted by the time Sherman's army caught up with him). A large minority with military training and weapons against a majority that has no military training or weapons is not a good situation for the majority, and attempts to create militias from amongst the majority were as farcical as attempts to train the Afghan army. Instructors who despise their instructees as simple retards simply aren't good at training them. Where the militia met the former Confederate Army in pitched battle, as happened multiple times during the last days of the occupation, the militia was typically wiped out or broke and ran. Part of the reason why the occupation had pretty much ended by 1875 was that the North was of the opinion, "we've spent ten years training these Negros, if they can't defend themselves it's their fault, not ours." And then abandoned them to the KKK.
Jazz, the reason that a lot of Americans are thrashing around and supporting strange and nonsensical political positions right now is that they see their consumerist ideology under attack and are thrashing out in knee-jerk response. My point was that America has been unified over the past sixty years or so by a common religion -- the almighty Dollar -- and that destroying this unity will be difficult. The USA today is not a patched-together nation of multiple individual ethnic nations the way that Yugoslavia was, despite what Texans might think they're a separate ethnicity (LOL!). Even within my lifetime the nation has survived some seriously strange and divisive times that make the current times look more like the usual rather than like the beginning of the end. In the end, nothing came of it because disunity is bad for business. And we can't have that, nosiree!
- Badtux the Geopolitics Penguin