The American Civil War: The War That Never Ended

Although a native of New York State, I have lived the majority of my life in the South which at times is like living in one huge insane asylum where grievances of 150 years ago remain alive and well in the minds of some who prefer to live in the past even though that past was not as golden as they like to pretend.  If one looks at many of the political problems now facing America, many of them trace directly to the South, it's history of bigotry, and the religious insanity of the Bible Belt where ignorance is seemingly deemed a virtue. Except for the harsh winters, there are indeed times I'd like to return to New York and its relative sanity.  A piece in The Economist looks at the South's continuing refusal to stop living in the past.  Here are excerpts:

FOR something that ended 150 years ago on April 9th, America’s civil war is strangely newsworthy. Last month the Supreme Court heard a case that asked whether Texas should allow the Sons of Confederate Veterans to put a Confederate flag on their car licence-plates, and two white students were expelled from the University of Oklahoma for singing a song about lynching taught to them by a fraternity founded in the antebellum South.

Many Americans remain fascinated by the conflict. In 2002 the Library of Congress estimated that 70,000 books had been published about it, more than one a day since the war ended. This year at Appomattox courthouse in Virginia 1,000 volunteers will dress up to re-enact the surrender there of General Robert E. Lee.

Yet the war is more than an excuse for dressing up. It created a divide that has yet to disappear. For all the economic dynamism of the South, which over the past few decades has almost caught up with the rest of the country economically . . ., it remains a region apart, from the bedroom to the ballot box. If you know whether a state was part of the Confederacy, it is possible to make a reasonably accurate guess about where it stands on a range of seemingly unconnected matters, from party politics to gay marriage.

In the autumn of 2014, when control of the Senate was decided in the mid-term elections, one of the best ways to predict the outcome was to look up the results of the presidential election of 1860.

Today, only five states have no minimum-wage laws; all were Confederate 150 years ago. Of the ten states that lock up the highest proportion of their citizens, seven were Confederate. A further two that make the top ten—Oklahoma and Arizona—were created since 1865 and settled in the late 19th century by southerners escaping the depression that followed defeat.

Does race explain the persistence of difference? This may have been true in the 1960s and 1970s, when the Republicans energetically wooed southern white Democrats who were outraged by Lyndon Johnson’s civil-rights laws. But it no longer fits. The most segregated schools are now in the north-east. Mixed-race marriages are growing faster in some southern states than anywhere else in America.

Religion is a better explanation of southern exceptionalism. The civil war divided most of America’s Protestant sects, says Mark Noll of the University of Notre Dame. Both the Presbyterian and Methodist churches split into northern branches, which opposed slavery, and southern branches, which did not. Even after slavery ended, theological divisions persisted. In the north, which saw mass immigration from all over the world in the decades after the war, Protestant churches had to find some accommodation with Jews, Catholics and, eventually, non-believers.

In the South the share of those born outside America (which was low to begin with) actually fell after the civil war. New migrants moved west or north but rarely south. Because of this, southern churches could hold more traditional views without challenge. Those tented revival meetings that were such a feature of southern Protestantism were not intended to win converts so much as to purify and strengthen beliefs that were already there.

The Southern Baptist movement, which is strongly associated with the “values voters” who favour the Republicans, has its origins in support for slavery.

When piety is grafted on to a small-government political philosophy—57% of southerners think the government does “too much” and only 37% think it should do more, according to Gallup—it explains much of why the South remains different. 

[T]here are two possible futures for what was once the Confederacy. The continuing in-migration of large numbers of northerners, including many African-Americans, may transform the rest of the South the way it has already transformed Virginia and Florida, which are both swing states these days. Or the South might continue to expand its cultural and religious reach westwards, as it has into Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico. Or both. Apologists for the old South like to point out that the last action of the war, a skirmish in Texas, resulted in a Confederate victory. It’s not over yet.

As the piece correctly notes, what truly poisons the South is conservative Christianity.  It embraces ignorance, celebrates division, and is terrified of modernity and knowledge.  

The Correlation Between Religiosity and Lower Citizen Well-Being

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Time and time again I've looked at the link between the lower economic performance of U.S. states deemed "conservative" and where religion is deemed "important."   The more religious and conservative a state's citizenry, the worse off economically the state is and the less competitive it is in recruiting new and lucrative business.  Now some new analysis shows that this tie between the level of religiosity also correlates to lowers societal well being.  The question is which came first? High levels of religiosity that have caused lower social well being or vice versa.  The authors of the studies put the blame on religion.  Just like some of Richard Florida's analysis that indicates the liberal states are winning out over the conservative sister states for increased business development and improved standards of living.  The map above looks at the levels of religiosity by state.  The map below looks at the so-called "Human Development Index" that considers things such as life expectancy, education, and income corruption, income disparity, child mortality, access to medical care, suicide rates, and so on:

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The South and the Bible Belt over all score the highest and also score the lowest when it comes to life expectancy, access to health care and over 20 other categories.  Texas, Georgis and North Carolina manage to dodge a dead last finish on the Human Development Index most likely because the large cities in those states counteract the abysmal results for the remainder of the state.  Mississippi and Alabama in contrast have no such major progressive cities and not surprisingly they land in the lowest category.

The author of the piece reaches a kinder conclusion toward religion than I do.  I would argue that the author has it backwards and that religiosity leads to low human development and regressive social well being.  Yes, the Christianists talk a good game about helping other and caring for their "neighbor," but in truth they don't follow through.  Meanwhile the best and brightest flee from the area - as is happening in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia - because of the backwardness of their surroundings and the depressed opportunity for advancement.   Here is the author's wrap up:

As you see, we have the same negative relationship between well-being and religiosity that we saw for different countries of the West. The correlation here is r= – 0.66897, and the probability (“p”) that this correlation would arise by chance is p = 0.00000012. (A value of p less than 0.05 is conventionally used to show a significant relationship.) This relationship, then, is not only striking but very highly significant in a statistical sense. Harry put a least-squares regression line through the data; its slope is also highly significant.

Why the correlation? Again, it could mean—but I am not pushing this interpretation as dogma—that people tend to either become more religious or retain a historical religiosity in areas where they are not very well off. There may also be ethnic differences that contribute to this (the population of blacks in America is concentrated in the south, for instance, and educational attainment is lower in general), but education itself is likely negatively correlated with indices of well being, and poverty is a component of both the HDI and SSS. Although I’m not a Marxist, Marx may have gotten it right when he said, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

The problem, in my view is that until regions throw off religiosity, they are NOT attractive to would be businesses and employers  who want to be able to attract the most able and innovative personnel.  That simply will not happen when regions and states are primary known for the knuckle dragging Christian extremist and bigoted social views.  It's a concept that has yet to be grasp by the Republican Party of Virginia and The Family Foundation.

 

Marcus Calabrese Announces Candidacy for Norfolk City Council

It has been ironic that even though Norfolk has perhaps the largest LGBT population of any of the cities of Hampton Roads and is the home to the artsy, trendy and LGBT-friendly Ghent neighborhood - which is the envy of many neighboring cities - other than allowing HR Pride to utilize Town Point Park for the 2011 Out in the Park celebration, the city government has in many ways been less than fully accepting of progressive ideas and a willingness to openly embrace the LGBT community. Even though according to researcher Richard Florida the LGBT community is the "canary in the coal mine" for determining whether or not a city or region is welcoming to the so-called "creative class." As reported by Bearing Drift, Marcus Calabrese, who I have come to know and value through our common membership on the board of directors of HRBOR, believes that continuing to do the same old thing and expecting different results needs to end. Hence the announcement that Marcus has thrown his hat in the ring to run for Norfolk City Council. Here are some highlights on what Marcus would like to accomplish if elected:

Economic development will be a top concern of mine. As a board member of Hampton Roads Business Outreach, a small business owner, and 2010’s youngest honoree of Inside Business’ Top 40 Under 40 I know what it takes to get people back to work. There’s a tremendous amount of talent here in Norfolk but the unemployment for young professionals is double the national average, I know their fears and I know they would rather have a future at home than having to leave Norfolk to pursue their career. I will work to bring new high paying jobs to Norfolk.

Each morning it seems like another embarrassing story about Norfolk’s government appears on the pages of the Virginian Pilot. Whether it is the dismissing of the Superintendent of public schools barely into his term, the paying of an employee for a decade without her showing up for work, Light Rail cost overruns without notice to the taxpayers, or one of the many other front page stories about Norfolk it is time for it to stop. I want to team with the new members of City Council who are making waves fighting for a more responsible and open government.

This race is about choices. The future of our great city is promising; we have much to be proud of and much to build on. But, the past choices that have impeded the future of Norfolk are real and deserve to be brought to light. The people of Norfolk deserve a choice for the future, do we want to continue down this path of missed opportunities or do we want a Norfolk that is prosperous, proud, and prime for a comeback?

Here's some more on Marcus' background:

Marcus Calabrese serves on the Board of Directors of Foodbank Southeastern Virginia, is Chairman of the Child Nutrition Council and Capital Campaign for Community Gifts. He is a member of the Board of Directors for Hampton Roads Business OutReach and is chairman of its Business & Government Relations department. He is also a public relations sponsor with Entrepreneurs Organization of SEVA. He has been awarded the “Safe Harbor” Award 2011 from Children’s Harbor and is a “Top 40 Under 40″ Honoree for 2010 from Inside Business Journal.

Virginian Pilot: Good Riddance to Ban on Gays

As Bob Marshall fulminates over gays soon being able to serve in the military without fear of discharge haunting them 24/7, the Virginian Pilot - which refused to publish information on GOP Scott Rigell's endorsement by and anti-gay hate group prior to the recent election - has even come out and lauded the demise of DADT. While in my view anything by allies to LGBT Virginians, even the folks at the Virginian Pilot can do the math and realize that with 77% of the population nationally supporting repeal, they had best get on board. The editorial page writers may also be belatedly waking up to the fact that the region needs to become more progressive and socially tolerant after being after slammed and being described as "Old, Slow and Not Too Bright" in a Brookings Institute study. Here are highlights from the Pilot editorial page:
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Good riddance to ban on gays. The inevitable arrived early. Despite overwhelming evidence that the military's controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy was doomed one way or another, it didn't appear Congress would ever muster the courage to end it - until Saturday.
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On a 65-31 vote, the Senate finally approved legislation to allow gays to serve openly in the armed forces. Among those voting for the measure were Democrats Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virginia and Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Kay Hagan of North Carolina. The vote was somewhat surprising, given the hyper-partisanship on Capitol Hill these days - not to mention the chronic hand-wringing and waffling over this issue.
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[A]generational shift in attitudes toward homosexuality - in the armed forces and the general population - ensured that such a discriminatory policy would not last. Recent court rulings also indicated the ban would not withstand continued legal challenges.
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There's no need to continue denying the reality that gay Americans can serve - and always have served - honorably in the military. More than 13,500 members of the armed forces have been driven out since the "don't ask, don't tell" policy went into effect in 1993. Countless others have lived in fear of reprisal, opted not to re-enlist or decided not to join because they didn't wish to live a lie.
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The military will adapt to this change, just as it did to racial integration and to allowing women to serve. In both those cases, critics predicted the sky would fall. It didn't. It won't this time, either.

Repealing Gay-Rights Laws Has Economic Chilling Effect

The fundies in Oregon are attempting to repeal anti-discrimination laws that protect gays as well as the state's domestic partners law. As some business owners are beginning to recognize, being anti-gay is NOT good for business (something Virginia has unfortunately yet to figure out). This fact is addressed in a great op/ed piece (http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006803250318) as well as a new Newsweek article (http://www.newsweek.com/id/124550) that looks at where the so-called creative class that fuel economic growth gravitates to live. Rest assured, it is NOT in the Bible belt or areas that embrace "family values."

Sadly, too many people, including those who alleged to be journalists fail to see this fact or recognize the anti-knowledge agenda of the Christianists. Truth be told, the Christianist care nothing about economic growth or progress. They resist science based education and in many ways - like Benedict XVI - want to take the nation back to the dark ages. Thinking citizens, however, need to wake up and not be fooled by their "family values" jargon. These folks hate everyone who doesn't share their perverted form of Christianity. Gays may be favored targets of the moment on their agenda, but we are followed by the right to contraception, divorce and many other matters of secular civil law. Moreover, if a city or region wants to truly prosper, an atmosphere where diversity (and gays) is tolerated is essential. First, here are highlights from the op/ed piece:

Oregon voters may well face two issues this fall that many people probably think were resolved some time ago: the state's new anti-discrimination and domestic-partner laws. Although some are trying to characterize those potential ballot measures as solely "moral issues," both undoubtedly have economic implications that voters would be well advised to consider.

Though there was an unsuccessful, last-ditch effort to block enactment of the domestic-partner law, its success is undeniable: Thousands of same-sex couples already have registered throughout the state, and many more are doing so each day. Likewise, tens of thousands of Oregonians who previously might have lost a job or been refused housing simply because of the status or perceived status of their sexual orientation now enjoy legal protection, thanks to the anti-discrimination statute.

Such policies are increasingly the law of the land. More than 90 percent of companies listed in the Fortune 500, for instance, ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, including such Oregon stalwarts at Nike and Intel. America's most highly regarded colleges and universities, including Oregon State University, the University of Oregon and Portland State, ban such discrimination and provide domestic-partner benefits similar (although not equal) to those provided to married couples.

It's one thing not to have such laws in place; many states still do not. But it's another thing entirely to repeal them once they've been enacted. To do so would send a signal to the nation that Oregonians want the ability to discriminate, to treat neighbors and co-workers unfairly without repercussions.

Such a message would poison the environment in such areas as business relocations. How many companies would choose to set up shop in a state that is repealing civil-rights laws? It also would have a chilling effect on existing companies' ability to attract and retain the best and brightest employees, most of whom expect progressive workplaces and living environments.

If either or both measure makes it to the ballot this fall, voters must understand that the future for gay Oregonians is not the only matter at stake; a repeal would have significant consequences for our economy that could take years to repair. For the sake of both fairness and economic good sense, the laws should stay as they are.

The Newsweek story reinforces this view. Here are some highlights that suggest that cities like Norfolk need to wake the Hell up, tell Pat Robertson to shut his mouth, and demand that the Virginia General Assembly move into the 21st century:

[M]oney, innovation, and distinct personality types increasingly clustering in the world's major metropolises. Using data collected from satellites and census surveys, Florida describes how a "creative class" of people is changing the economic landscape by congregating in a shrinking set of cities located farther and wider than ever before. What's more, different types of these creative innovators are sticking with their own kind, molding each city's distinct demographics, job markets, and mating markets (or dating scenes).

But what we found in our research is that 40 million Americas move each year, and 15 million make really significant moves 50 to 100 miles out of the county they live in. That's a lot. And young people with high levels of education are the most likely to move. I call this the "brain migration" or the "means migration." In the past, mostly every city had the same profile of people: some college graduates, some graduate school graduates, some high school graduates, some high school dropouts. But now more and more highly educated people are moving to a smaller number of cities.

We're becoming so divided that these propulsive centers of our economy are generating fear, anxiety, and resentment. People say, "The cities are where the yuppies, trendoids, and gays live. We have to move back to family values." And our public policy actually punishes cities, as we transfer wealth from them to our hinterlands. It's in the culture wars, the Red and Blue states—the spiky centers are all bright blue, while the places being left behind are deep red. Barack Obama appeals to people in the spiky centers, Hillary Clinton appeals to the people in Ohio being left behind, and John McCain appeals to people who are outside and resentful of this kind of change. Sooner or later in our world economy, we're going to need leaders willing address this, but until then it's just going to get worse and worse, more and more concentrated.