Five reasons why government shutdown points to breakup of U.S.

Secession is not just for unreconstructed Confederates anymore. On both the right and the left, Americans increasingly see Washington as the problem and local autonomy as the solution.

Despite all the talk, the federal government shutdown hasn’t greatly affected daily life for most Americans so far. Some have been hit hard, especially federal employees, those receiving certain benefit payments, and tourists planning to visit the Smithsonian or a national park. But as apocalypses go, a couple weeks without “non-essential” federal services has been underwhelming for most American families.

Things could get worse if the closure were to extend from weeks into months. But judging by past shutdowns, it’s likely that Obama and Congressional Republicans will soon reach a deal to restart the federal services that have been suspended since Congress failed to pass a funding bill by the start of the federal fiscal year on October 1.

The World War II Memorial will then be open again. But that won’t mean that America can go back to normal.

The new normal

Normal ended for most of us when the economy crashed in 2008 and the government shutdown shows definitively that no help can be expected from Washington for ordinary citizens who continue to suffer. Despite economists having declared the Great Recession finished in June 2009, in today’s economy most Americans outside the top 1% are still battling financial hardship:

• One in five families relies on food stamps, food banks and other feeding programs to make sure that they’ll have enough to eat next week
• Overdue student loan debt and youth unemployment remain at all time highs
• For the last decade, the stock market has soared, helping the rich, but middle-class household income has declined

It’s clear that America’s middle class is actually suffering through what Paul Krugman has called a new Depression or even what James Howard Kunstler has more ominously dubbed The Long Emergency.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair

The shutdown demonstrates beyond doubt that Washington, plagued by partisan intransigence and captured by corporate special interests, has finally become unable to effectively govern the United States.

In 2009, early in the economic downturn, Paul Starobin made the case in his book After America: Narratives for the Next Global Age that governing America from Washington has become such an unwieldy system as to justify alternative arrangements. His perspective is even more prescient after the government shutdown.

“The present-day American Goliath may turn out to be a freak of a waning age of politics and economics as conducted on a super-sized scale — too large to make any rational sense in an emerging age of personal empowerment that harks back to the era of the yeoman farmer of America’s early days,” Starobin wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

It’s easy to laugh at Texans who’ve threatened for years to leave the Union. But with dysfunction in Washington sure to grow, Texas secessionists may ultimately have the last laugh. Image: Jesse 1974/Flickr.

Starobin comes at the problem of an oversized America from the right-wing — he rails against imperial overreach by President Obama and the expansion of social programs that Republicans refer to as “Big Government.”

But there are plenty of people on the left who also think that America has gotten too big to operate as a democracy. Just take the example of the secessionist movement in ultra-liberal Vermont, whose adherents want the freedom to eat local and organic and exclude nuclear power without interference from Washington.

While the mainstream media seem to find the idea of secession laughable at best, groups on both sides of the political edge are embracing the eventual breakup of the United States as not merely thinkable but even desirable.

Secession from Oregon to Texas

Here are five reasons why secessionist movements like the microbrew-friendly Republic of Cascadia in the Pacific Northwest and the immigrant-unfriendly Texas Nationalist Movement may ultimately win some degree of autonomy from Washington:

1. Political Polarization — Does anyone think that, after Boehner and Obama make a deal to re-open the government, the two parties will begin to work harmoniously in the national interest anytime in the near future? Look for the trend of take-no-prisoners partisan warfare to ramp up, not down, in coming years, bringing the machinery of national government to a halt again and again through future battles over the federal debt, social programs, financial regulations and environmental protection. Partisan fighting will alienate voters and make clear the increasing impotence of the federal government.
2. Resentment of the One Percent — No one benefits more from centralized power than big corporations and the rich people who own them — and who pull the strings of power in Washington. Coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, both Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party are populist movements critical of centralized power in both the government and the economy. As the economy continues to decline and government falters, movements on the political extremes will gain followers as more families have to struggle to keep their homes on part-time jobs. Americans who fall out of the middle class will grow angry and resentful at the rich for so cruelly rigging the system against the ordinary wage-earner.
3. Economic Collapse — The collapse of an economy that requires continuous growth but is stuck on a planet with finite resources may be unavoidable, but gridlock in Washington will help to bring it on sooner as the ripple effect from a decline in federal spending acts as a negative stimulus, killing jobs and causing businesses to close. After a few more government shutdowns, the next financial collapse could make 2008 look tame. As the national economy fails to deliver the prosperity that Americans used to expect, they’ll look more to economic solutions from local manufacturing to local currency.
4. Climate Chaos — Mounting costs to deal with the superstorms, derechos and other weather disasters that will become both more frequent and more damaging due to runaway climate change will stretch federal, state and local budgets to their breaking points. As schools, roads and social services are cut to pay for rebuilding hurricane-ravaged cities or constructing sea walls to protect coastal areas from rising seas, populations will grow restless. Initially, they’ll look to Washington for help. When that help disappoints or fails to arrive altogether, citizens will fall back on their states and localities, making the federal government increasingly irrelevant.
5. Peak Oil — By itself, depletion of fossil fuels will raise the cost of energy beyond the point at which transportation costs will make governing any nation of continental scale, whether the U.S. or Russia or China, impractical. In the long run, an ongoing reduction in travel by air, road and rail in response to rising costs for liquid fuels from crude oil will weaken the national ties forged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the rise of those same forms of transportation. This will provide more slack to breakaway regions and secessionist movements. In the short-term, a 1970s-style energy crisis or some more catastrophic oil shock may be the Black Swan event needed to push the weakened and brittle edifice of national government and global trade over the edge into collapse.

All of these factors could clear the way for regional secession movements that could ultimately break up the U.S. and all of North America into half a dozen or more regional nations. In the meantime, as the economy continues to cool down, the climate continues to heat up and Americans get more cynical about Washington and Wall Street, campaigns for everything from local food to local money could coalesce into a grand localist wave like the Transition movement, which already boasts nearly 150 Transition Towns in the U.S. committed to building local autonomy.

In a future where central government has clearly lost control, that local autonomy could evolve into local sovereignty.

– Erik Curren, Transition Voice

14 Comments on "Five reasons why government shutdown points to breakup of U.S."

BillT on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 1:41 am 



Unless the US wants to become a feudal society, it need some cohesion. The EU is likely to break up into it’s separate countries and could do so because of it’s past history. The US States are not separate countries of old, united for a monetary purpose, but the parts of a Federation. More likely, the US will break into a few parts and ally with a foreign country of their choice.

Then again, it may just remain united, but much, much weaker, like the rest of the West will be when the dust settles. Transition is a nice idea with too short of a time frame to make it happen smoothly.

Bike Trog on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 2:29 am 



During the last war, I thought states might secede to avoid paying their share of war debt.

I have been wondering what will Alaska become. It could be a nation-state, part of Cascadia, West Canada, New Japan, East Siberia, or Alaxsxaq, if only the indigenous people stay there.

ghung on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 3:15 am 



We’ll hold on for at least ~5 more years, until about 30 years after the Soviet Union broke up (a couple of years after they left Afghanistan). I thought that went pretty well. I wonder who’ll get the nukes, but each region can keep its own nuke waste; nowhere to put it anyway.

I’m sure we’ll figure out the professional sports thing too; no sense throwing out the babies with the bathwater. Free tickets with your fully paid citizenship tax.

LT on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 3:54 am 



“Five reasons why government shutdown points to breakup of U.S.”

>> Nonsense. Will not happen. Time will tell.

DC on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 3:57 am 



Mr Curren seems a little confused about the true nature of what is going on inside his own empire borders. But that is understandable. Years of relentless propaganda in the US deliberately mis-characterize just about everything they choose to ‘talk’ about.

#1 There is no ‘political polarization’. Polar implies there is more than one side and in the US there is no such thing. All there is corporate-military rule. The ‘fight’ in reality, is corporate rulers, in this particular case, the for-profit ‘health-care’ corporations, fighting popular pressure from below to make token changes to an unjust system. The other not discussed factor is the US is functionally bankrupt-but no one wants to admit that openly. So a manufactured fight over O-care’ if preferable to admitting the US is only interested in funding wars and subsidizing banks and auto\corporations-and nothing else.

#2 True enough I suppose. But in any other country, there would have been a popular revolution by now. Amerikans are far to passive to confront corporate rule directly. So all this resentment, while genuine enough, is meaningless as amerikans are unwilling to directly confront the banksters, corporations and military junta that rules the US.

#3 Again, Mr Curren does not understand what is really going on. That ‘gridlock’ he blames for all the ills he lists is not an accident. It is intentional. Washington is designed to block meaningful change and action.-not facilitate it. The shop-drive-consume on credit economy of the US IS the problem. More of the same will accelerate the collapse he so fears.

#4 Yes

#5 Sure, all complex political entities break down, especially when under resource\overpopulation stress, like the US suffers from. The thing the rest of us would rather avoid, is the US elites making a ruin of the world, rather than face the fact of their empire brought low.

PrestonSturges on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 5:20 am 



“Washington” is not the problem.. The problem is the idiot goober know-nothings elected to Congress who literally have no idea how government functions or even basic civics.

The only good thing we can say about them is that they rarely actually show up for work and then they only name stuff after Reagan.

J-Gav on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 10:13 am 



I doubt very much that the present shut-down will cause the Union to break up. It is, nevertheless, a symptom of a failing empire – one which someday could conceivably break up into regional blocks.

Arthur on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 12:09 pm 



Bill says: “More likely, the US will break into a few parts and ally with a foreign country of their choice.”

Exactly and I can give you the details:

– the South-West will be handled by the loving care of La Raze (“The Race”, the ADL is not very big in the SW) and probably moved back into Mexico –> pre-1836 borders restored. Expect large columns of tilt cars with white people heading north.
– African South-East, kept alive by Euro-America, but no Obama-care.
– Euro-American north, allied with Europe and Russia.

#1 – there is, for the first time, very well a political polarization. For the first time a grass roots movement, TP, manages to break into Washington, at the very same time that it starts to dawn to the more brighter heads in the Republican Party that their days are over for ever and don’t stand a chance to ever return to power again because of shifting demographics. The US currently has almost 50m on food stamps and that number is rising fast. That means that the Reps will never win an election again.
Dems – 1800
Reps – 1854
The two party system had an exceptional stability and lasted about twice as long as the communist party of the USSR. But all good things come to an end.

It could very well be that as we speak the Republicans are blowing up the system on purpose or at least have diminished interest in keeping the current system alive and prefer to continue their political careers in a secessionist movement.

The Yugoslav communist Milosevich became a Serb nationalist on the very moment that he understood that Yugoslavia and communism were over.

The Republicans will become Euro-Americans (just like their voters) on the moment they understand that the US-empire is over.

Charlie Bucket on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 12:35 pm 



The only thing that could cause people to act this stupid is religion. Ted Cruz is part a right wing, Christo-fascist Reform movement set out to take over the government and create a despotic theocracy. They can do it as long as they remember the Roman mantra “Bread and Circuses” because Amerikans are f*^king STUPID!

peakyeast on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 2:06 pm 



Of course it is not forgotten in circles of power that if you are not corrupted then you are shot or discredited. Suddenly some whores will testify that you raped them – like Julian Assange – or when Kofi Annan was discredited right after he didnt do US bidding in the UN.

Northwest Resident on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 2:57 pm 



The majority of the American people by far do not want a breakup of America into separate regions. The military and NSA and other security and law enforcement units will not stand for, and that is a guarantee. Only radicals in the TP and religio-fascist white supremist crazies want to secede. In due time, these lunatics will be rounded up and dealt with appropriately, the sooner the better. Tough time lie ahead. We are stronger united than we are devolving into separate regions where lunatics and crazies of all stripes have their shot at rising to power. Breakup of America MUST NOT HAPPEN.

Gwynevere on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 4:28 pm 



More Solar panels will fix the collapse of the US!

DC on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 6:40 pm 



RoFL! There is no ‘tea party’ in the Corporate States. It is a media fiction, a fabrication designed as a lightening rod to keep the people dazzled while corporations and Wall St. continue to loot the nation, and by extension, large parts of the world they hold sway over.

Get over the TP schtick amerikans. They don’t exist, and there is no such animal. Look for it all you want, all you find is cardboard cutouts, smoke and mirrors.

Arthur on Wed, 16th Oct 2013 9:48 pm 



DC, the MSM media (not Fox) consistently denounce the tea party (‘tea baggers’). How can you say it is a fiction? We have seen town hall meetings filled with these angry elder white Republican voters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement