I wasn't alive for Brown versus the Board of Education, or the National Guard protecting children on their way to school in Little Rock. I never saw Governor George Wallace live on TV, or knew a time where interracial marriage was a crime in some states.
But I know very well that many of the underlying issues charging these events, people and policies are still alive and well in the South, and elsewhere in the United States. To paraphrase Mark Twain, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme sometimes.
National standards for education, active integration of schools, and a broadening of the state and local tax base to ensure a fair distribution of public money for students are controversial, racially loaded matters in today's state politics. Demagogues who speak for the elusive, increasingly rare "real Americans" magnify mostly white rural people's natural tendencies towards fear of the outsider. Despite radical change in the way that homosexuality is perceived by the general public, gays are still banned from the military in a craven compromise, and some states go as far as to ban gays from adopting children, despite an absolute lack of rational justification.
Knowing all that, I can imagine what it must have felt like back in the 50s and 60s to see the federal government step into the superstitious, social morass of local culture and politics. Armed soldiers marched against an immoral chorus of parochial interests shouting above everything else, "you can't tell us what to do down here!" Knowing how people feel about the Living in the South today, I feel less than one step removed from that mentality, and one motion away from its reprise.
What do I mean by this? The bottom line is that, when left to their own devices, the Southern public will vote against anything other than what is in their immediate self-interest. Without a federal mandate for civil rights, health care, public safety, or rule of law, there would be none in these places. Without the net influx of federal cash to Southern states, the South would more closely resemble Latin America, with a small contingent of cloistered, extraordinarily wealthy property owners variously employing, exploiting or ignoring everyone else. In short, it would revert to the quietly revered antebellum era.
To those who disagree with this take, I ask, what is there at a local level that would prevent it from happening? Would the oft-caricatured-but-uncannily-accurate corpulent and corrupt Southern governors borne out of the landed aristocracy decide that it was time for the state to ensure that everyone had a good education, access to the courts, and basic labor standards? What if it meant raising taxes to achieve those ends? What if it meant increased scrutiny in their own dealings? Having lived here for 6 years, I no longer have much faith in the much-touted Southern State to handle its own affairs in any way approaching basic moral values. However tone-deaf, arbitrary or inefficient it is, the federal government is the only thing holding this region back from real crisis.
Let's get beyond pure conjecture here. In 2008, Georgia's state budget was $21 billion. This budget provided what amounts to a fairly bare-bones set of offerings in terms of Medicaid reimbursement, education, transportation, public safety and justice. In 2011, Georgia must achieve a budget of $15 billion, even with almost a million new residents. There is no talk of new taxes. Quite the opposite. Candidates for office speak of further tax cuts. All the services that can be cut already have been. The only policy for solvency here is to allow businesses to make greater profits off the backs of working people than they can elsewhere. Cut labor regulation, code enforcement, corporate taxes and legal obligations, and you'll be more attractive to some kinds of businesses, but not the ones I want to work for.
I love many things about life here, but I really, truly doubt its ability to govern itself according to the standards of modern morality. The economy has been brutal, but they've already been bailed out once, giving them a free pass from tough political decisions like cutting services, or raising taxes. What happens next time, once an even more ideological government steps in? What happens when standards for education, transportation, safety, labor, and the other things we depend on for our level of civilization can no longer be guaranteed by the State? What do we do as a country when a state is unable or unwilling to provide a standard level of decency? Do we mandate some kind of legal tough love? Do we cut them lose from federal protections and obligations? Do we send in the troops?
Last time the feds came in, it involved morality. This time, the brewing conflict involves money. Which is a higher-stakes game?
Good luck to all my friends and neighbors here in Georgia, and the good people of all walks of life who live in this state and beyond. Seriously, you'll need it.
