Divided red/blue still staggers U.S. backward

Excerpted and edited by Carolyn Bennett
International Havana interviewed University of New Mexico Professor Emeritus Nelson Valdés. This is some of what he had to say about a relentless tragedy, “United States: Two Nations.”

“‘[T]here are two nations in the United States, with two foreign policies.’ When there is talk in the United States of BLUE and RED states … this is a reference to two nations; and the nation that is growing is the South.”

“Southerners are conservative and, for that reason, opposed ─ to the point of hatred ─ to progressive political ideas.”

Founders led
“The nationalist and conservative ideology was founded in the South within a tradition of identifying with the past. … [T]he founding fathers acknowledged slavery and did not question it! The original constitution permitted it.”

Religionists pushed
“The ideology of revenge” [and supremacy] has a basis within religion: of Southern Baptists; in Lutheranism transported from Northern Europe, planted in Border States with Canada; in Southerners who ended up in Alaska; in Mormons populating Utah, rising from right-wing traditions of Arizona.

Land split
For the North, the Civil War ended in 1865. For the South, it was just beginning. A Southern nationalism developed against the North. Today the United States of America, in real terms, comprises “TWO NATIONS.”


Sources and notes
“United States: two nations” (Manuel E. Yepe), I N T E R N A T I O N A L, Havana, July 29, 2010, http://www.granma.cu/ingles/international-i/29julio-30eeuu.html
Nelson P. Valdés, a Cuban academic resident in the United States for 40 years, in an email interview.
An expert on U.S. history, Valdés, until his recent retirement, was a professor at the University of New Mexico. Nelson Valdés is Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico.
Selected Biography of Nelson P. Valdés, http://www.freethefive.org/legalFront/amicuscuban-american-scholars.pdf
Nelson P. Valdés’ latest article “More Double Standards on Cuba ─ Gross Media Negligence” (Nelson P. Valdes, Saul Landau), Counterpunch Weekend Edition August 6 - 8, 2010, http://www.counterpunch.org/landau08062010.html