Divide and conquer: Is this the plan?

Dakinkat's article on French and German recovery is a must-read:

Germany is a manufacturer and exporter. Yes, that’s right. Germany has trade unions, good vacation packages, excellent schools, universal health care, lots of solar power and tough environmental regulations and they still have a manufacturing economy and they export. Their form of government is basically a type of democratic socialism. All the things we are taught to view with suspicion. Still, Germany manages to manufacture things and export to China the country to whom the U.S. has practically sold their collective soul so we can massively huge import junk on a rapidly decreasing credit line.

Since we do not have a robust export sector, we must rely on consumer spending for much of our stimulus. This will have mixed results because much of our consumer spending is import-based which means it stimulates economies elsewhere.

Can we continue to live in denial that some of the industrial plans, export/import management strategies, and policy priorities of our European cousins may actually have viability?

It's almost as though America's leadership reviewed the world economic situation and said: "Let's determine what works -- what really, really works -- and then not do that."

I felt the tin foil dig into my scalp as DK's analysis reminded me of a bizarre Wall Street Journal article advocating the division of the United States:

Picture an America that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy but, in freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of the society.

There might be an austere Republic of New England, with a natural strength in higher education and technology; a Caribbean-flavored city-state Republic of Greater Miami, with an anchor in the Latin American economy; and maybe even a Republic of Las Vegas with unfettered license to pursue its ambitions as a global gambling, entertainment and conventioneer destination. California? America’s broke, ill-governed and way-too-big nation-like state might be saved, truly saved, not by an emergency federal bailout, but by a merciful carve-up into a trio of republics that would rely on their own ingenuity in making their connections to the wider world.

Devolved America is a vision faithful both to certain postindustrial realities as well as to the pluralistic heart of the American political tradition—a tradition that has been betrayed by the creeping centralization of power in Washington over the decades but may yet reassert itself as an animating spirit for the future.

The seductive malevolence of this proposition becomes most apparent when you re-read that last paragraph in the light of Germany's rebound, as described above.

Germany faces the same "postindustrial realities" that we do, yet the Germans enjoy a higher quality of life and a greater resilience in the face of recession. Power is far more centralized in Germany than is the case here -- and yet that country prospers, despite the WSJ's "big gummint is always bad" ideology. As for that "tradition of pluralism" bit: Keep in mind that Germany has remained disunified (religiously and politically) for most of its history. In 1870, Napoleon III presumed that Bavaria would come in on his side if Prussia went to war with France.

What we need in California is more concentrated state government power, not less. We need a rollback of the initiative process. We need to make tax policy subject to a simple majority vote.

Similarly, if the United States federal government were run more like the centralized governments of Germany and France, we would be as happy and healthy as they are. In this country, health care reform has become an intractable problem due to the obstructionist tactics of a handful of politicians from tiny states. The Senate is an inherently anti-democratic institution because it grants disproportional power to our Jayzuss-addled rural areas. If we reformed the Constitution, if we did away with the Senate, something like single-payer would suddenly become much more do-able.

The electoral college, like the Senate, unfairly favors the small states -- and it gave us George Bush in 2000.

What would happen if the Washington-haters had their way? What if the United States were no longer united? Obviously, a divided Republic would result in a collection of weaklings. In the international arena, each statelet would function like a three-man football team facing the Dallas Cowboys. The People's Republic of Southern California might have more political heft than is currently exercised by, say, Bolivia -- but not much more.

And perhaps...

(Is your tin foil cap on nice and tight? I take a 7 and 3/4...)

...perhaps that is the plan.

Think about it, and think hard. Do you want to live in a world in which the United States, the USSR and China are all dissolved into constituent parts -- while Germany is united, and Europe is united under Germany?

That's where we are heading. Our incompetent leaders are leading us toward dissolution, the same way an incompetent CEO leads the firm toward Chapter 11. The international financiers, the ideologues, the screeching partisans, the racial isolationists (e.g., Farrakhan), the religious fundamentalists and the regional xenophobes (such as the neo-Confederates and the Texas secessionists) are all pointing down the road to ruin.

Sure, the secessionists are, at present, a small group of wackos. In a time of financial disaster, the wackos have their chance.