BIG TEN NATION
|
|
| Also listed in: Appalachian Populists | Interfaith Peace Coalition | Licking County Pro-Active Citizens (www.licopac.org) | Perry County Democratic Forum |
If change is the name of the game, we might all look beyond our relatively cautious President-elect to the forecast of Russian strategist Igor Panarin who predicts our 50 states will abandon the Union in 2010 and dissolve into regional groupings based on ethnicity and economics.
This must be serious geopolitics since it's featured Page 1 today in the always-serious Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html
Panarin's construction, which echoes the break-up of the Soviet Union, would see the 48 continental states clustering into four super-states with Alaska going back to Russia (bye, bye Sarah!) and Hawaii being ceded to Japan or China (bye, bye Barack!).
Since this smacks of board game punditry, let's have some fun with it during this dreadfully dull holiday no-news cycle.
---Ohio would become the east flank of the Central North American Republic extending to Missouri on the south, Montana on the west and the Canada to the North. Happily, this leaves the Big 10 intact (except for Penn State which never really fit in anyway). On the downside, this still leaves hated Michigan to our north and makes the Midwest subject to corrupt Chicago politics (as opposed to corrupt Washington politics).
---To our east lies the republic of Atlantic America which, not only controls the coastline from Maine to South Carolina but gets West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee as well. Surely this Republic can not stand, with Right-Wing South Carolina forced into confederacy with East Coast liberals and Kentucky and West Virginia mountaineers. As Civil War II looms, look for a mass exodus of RVs back to the Midwest as snowbirds from Ohio and Michigan flee from the Carolinas and Tennessee.
---The Deep South restores the Rebel Flag as The Texas Republic, now extending Dixie to the Southwest states of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Give 'em W as president of the new Hard-Right Republic, now that Laura is dragging George back to Dallas. Serves 'em right.
---And the legal lid on the ambitions of Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger disappears as he becomes president of the new Californian Republic which includes everything west of the Rockies. We'll miss Hollywood and the Grand Canyon and Starbucks but this new desert republic can now kiss good-bye to any hope of sipping Great Lakes water.
And think of the advantages for Ohio.
At a stroke, all those foreign cars now being built in places like Arkansas and Mississippi suddenly become imports again, subject to import tariffs. Advantage: Honda.
States like Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin can now ally with Canada. Admit it, we've got more in common with Canadians than we do with Texans or Californians.
And in the coming Water Wars, who controls not only the Great Lakes (most of them, at least) but is in a good position to control the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers as well?
Okay, all this is fantasy, probably.
But remember who owns the Wall Street Journal and decided to put this on Page 1. If anybody can make it happen, it's Rupert Murdock.
This must be serious geopolitics since it's featured Page 1 today in the always-serious Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html
Panarin's construction, which echoes the break-up of the Soviet Union, would see the 48 continental states clustering into four super-states with Alaska going back to Russia (bye, bye Sarah!) and Hawaii being ceded to Japan or China (bye, bye Barack!).
Since this smacks of board game punditry, let's have some fun with it during this dreadfully dull holiday no-news cycle.
---Ohio would become the east flank of the Central North American Republic extending to Missouri on the south, Montana on the west and the Canada to the North. Happily, this leaves the Big 10 intact (except for Penn State which never really fit in anyway). On the downside, this still leaves hated Michigan to our north and makes the Midwest subject to corrupt Chicago politics (as opposed to corrupt Washington politics).
---To our east lies the republic of Atlantic America which, not only controls the coastline from Maine to South Carolina but gets West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee as well. Surely this Republic can not stand, with Right-Wing South Carolina forced into confederacy with East Coast liberals and Kentucky and West Virginia mountaineers. As Civil War II looms, look for a mass exodus of RVs back to the Midwest as snowbirds from Ohio and Michigan flee from the Carolinas and Tennessee.
---The Deep South restores the Rebel Flag as The Texas Republic, now extending Dixie to the Southwest states of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Give 'em W as president of the new Hard-Right Republic, now that Laura is dragging George back to Dallas. Serves 'em right.
---And the legal lid on the ambitions of Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger disappears as he becomes president of the new Californian Republic which includes everything west of the Rockies. We'll miss Hollywood and the Grand Canyon and Starbucks but this new desert republic can now kiss good-bye to any hope of sipping Great Lakes water.
And think of the advantages for Ohio.
At a stroke, all those foreign cars now being built in places like Arkansas and Mississippi suddenly become imports again, subject to import tariffs. Advantage: Honda.
States like Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin can now ally with Canada. Admit it, we've got more in common with Canadians than we do with Texans or Californians.
And in the coming Water Wars, who controls not only the Great Lakes (most of them, at least) but is in a good position to control the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers as well?
Okay, all this is fantasy, probably.
But remember who owns the Wall Street Journal and decided to put this on Page 1. If anybody can make it happen, it's Rupert Murdock.
Comments are closed for this post.