Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

In your life time you will see the English speaking Canada join the States for economic reasons. You will see the drug war in Mexico spill over into the S.W. United States and we will invade and occupy Mexico after some drug lord nukes Dallas or some such thing. Northern Mexico will annex to the United States and eventually the lower half of Mexico will unite with the Central American countries to form the Estados Unidos de America Espanol.

France will annex Quebec as one of their provinces.

Secede, Balkanize, hell no it is all going the other way.

Lincoln stitched us together by supporting intercontinental railroads. Ike drew us closer with the inter state roads. Obama will cinch us up even tighter with the High Speed Rail System.

China ain't going to do shit to us so long as their money is backed up by dollars and we owe them our first born child. We have done something undreamed of in the cold war, we have conquered China by letting them buy us.

You understand do you not that under Texas vs White the Supreme Court says that no U.S. State has ever seceded.
 

"Redneck nocturnal [e]missions..."

Phlegm?
 

I'm convinced of the opinion that all heresy is an obsession with a partial truth that has been squeezed out of a healthy system.

US socio-political structure was founded on a federalist/republic debate that balanced powers between the central and the state. The powers of the state lacked the specificity of the powers of the central government because they pre-existed the new creation and were assumed.

For me, the suspicion of central government is part of the heritage of the United States, and can be healthy. Can be. Personally, I'm fairly comfortable with a balance between my local powers and the federal government. But then, my state and city governments are not like most of the nations local powers. (Except in sexual mismanagement, where they're all alike.)

But, here, diversity has influence, vested and shared powers, hegemony has been squeezed down to near, but not yet very near, insignificance.

And that's been the principal domestic war in our society for sixty years. The rise of federal power within states became necessary in the struggle for civil rights for all Americans. And that is still the threat. Local powers in most states condense too easily into hegemonic interests. They are still too racist, too homophobic, too misogynist to be responsible to all their citizens.

Once we as a people erase the color/gender/sex lines, states can recover a balance of powers. But that's going to take another decade or two yet.
 

They're remaking Red Dawn?!? Can't wait. I love to watch that movie and laugh at how much the right-wing movie-lovers hate America as demonstrated in that movie. They hate us, they think our military and its civilian leadership is weak - too much fun.

Did you know that Al Haig was an adviser to the original filmmakers? Tells you an awful lot.
 

Red Dawn fell apart for me within the first three minutes. In my little home town of 1500 people there were probably 3000+ guns and only about a third of those were registered. Also almost every car or truck had a rifle, shotgun, or pistol in it. In addition the cold war paranoia was so rampant that no one would have hesitated to shoot anyone in a strange uniform parachuting into town.

The American small town in Red Dawn was Woosville.

I can not immagine what kind of audience they will have this time. My bet is not a big one.
The original is a cult film. Know of any sucessful remakes of a cult film?
 

F: "Once we as a people erase the color/gender/sex lines,..."

"Erase", never.
Soften or mitigate maybe, destroy, no.
 

I remember thinking the same thing. Couldn't imagine the Otasco turning over sales records, or the local mayor turning traitor. Or, as you said, a bunch of other things. But, once you suspend your sense of reality, it's pretty good.

It looks like they're following the same ge neral story line. If so, I can't imagine it tapping the same things the original did, because those things are superceded now by fresher fears and concerns. I mean, if there's no Islamic threat, wth? I'll be going to see it, in any case!
 

On "erasing" race, gender lines, etc.; I agree that they can only be toned down, not erased. And I wouldn't want them erased. I think peace comes from acceptance of my own race, and yours, and my own gender, and yours. Besides that, were they erased, then the fact that there is "neither Jew nor Greek," etc., etc., in Christ ceases to have any import, or meaning, for that matter.
 

W.E.B. DuBois: “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.”

It's a classic reference, one that comes nowhere near inferring mere "difference."

Sometimes that old paranoia just rears up around here. And in myself, too.

Whiteness is a condition, and, at other times, just a difference.
 

We can erase the laws creating the "color line", as well as public policies. Digging the color line out of our lizard brains is probably not possible. We are hard wired to fear "the other". We can use the higher brain function to contain and overcome the medulla's instincts but they will still linger there waiting to sneak out at the first chance.

We can never assume that "the other" won't be an issue, personally or publicly. Especially when there are always mind-benders out there using it for their own nefarious purposes.
 

At one time, the Celts and the Lombards were "the other" to each other. No longer.

The lizard brain was not structured on color lines or tribal groups. "The Other" is a plastic concept, structured only by whatever the current definition of threat may be.

"The Other" is increasingly structured to mean "immigrant" in this country. And not by whites alone.

The Color LIne is arbitrary and survives on regressive and racist continuities. It will pass away in time. The Lizard Brain notwithstanding - because the Lizard Brain has already begun to care less about color and more about tax consumption.