Professor Elam

The New Civil War

The very phrase ‘American Civil War’ conjures up all sorts of images. One recalls a dashing Clark Gable courting a standoffish Vivian Leigh in Gone With the Wind. Or perhaps one remembers Clint Eastwood playing the hard bitten loner searching for gold in The Good, Bad, and Ugly. Still one thing is for sure, the New Civil War, with the same geographic outlines as 1861-65 rages on.   Let’s take a look.

Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon surveyed the southern border of Pennsylvania between 1763 and 1767. That became the demarcation line for the later Missouri compromises on slavery and then the line of secession for the Southern States during the Civil War. So, envision the  Blue Union North and the Red (gray?)  Southern States. Now let’s fast forward.

The Taft Hartley Act of 1947 allowed states to pass Right to Work Laws. Such legislation prohibits compulsory union membership (the closed shop) as a condition of employment.  These states are known as Open Shop states. All the Southern States have passed such laws. The Northern States however remain Union Shop states where compulsory union membership is the law.

The ultimate end of this dichotomy, a unionized north and open shop south, can be seen in the auto industry. Unable to fund promised future benefits, GM and Chrysler collapsed and were rescued by the pro-union Administration. Virtually all  new automobile  plants built by foreign manufacturers are located in right to work states.

The Open Shop southern and western states tend to vote red for Republican.  The Closed Shop Northern States tend to vote blue or Democrat. Now, pull it all together, the three maps of the Civil War, the Right to Work States, and the Red Blue voting states, are all the same map.

Amid the Continuing Economic Disaster dating from 2000, there is one growth industry, natural gas. As modern day Political Don Quixotes (like the President) literally tilt at windmills  and solar power, shale gas has been discovered in abundance, both in the South and, increasingly, uh oh, in the North. The Hills of North Dakota are alive with Now Hiring Signs, ditto the Rust Belts of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. One might think a beleaguered Administration, desperate for job creation, would embrace perhaps the only industry in expansion mode. One would be dead wrong.

War has been declared on the oil and gas industry. Drilling permits were shut off in the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling in ANWAR remains forbidden. Hearings on the alleged terrible practice of hydraulic fracturing begin on Capitol Hill. The EPA proposes regulations which will shutter perhaps 8% of the entire national power grid, at a time when American struggle to pay monthly bills. This is all done in the name of ‘green energy’; but where is the Green Energy employment dividend?

This month alone three companies in the richly subsidized solar power business have declared bankruptcy. Now, as always, alternative energy is not competitive with carbon fuels even with helicopter showering of subsidies.

We’re not as far removed from the original Civil War as you might think. My grandparents actually knew kinfolk that fought in the War Between the States, yes really. If one was born between 1883 and 1895 as my grandparents were, those stories of the Blue and the Gray were still vivid around the fireplace.

People of all ethnicities are voting with their feet, leaving New York and IL for the job rich Southern States. It is looking more like a Southern Governor (Perry) has a shot at taking on the Bluest of Northern Senators now elected President. He is out to re-make America, and making good on his promise.  Will Northern states desperate for jobs and income stay in the Union fold?

I suspect another Battle of Gettysburg awaits in the form of the National Election of 2012.  The national election is won on a State by State basis, remember the map?  We have the resources to be energy independent via our own oil, shale gas, and nuclear power.  Will American embrace its own resources, or continue to tilt at windmills and solar cells?