Winter Of Discontent: The Confederate Elections Of 2013

It's here! Down with Gingrich!

I am extremely curious as to the backstory of this. Definitely going to be watching, though.

Awesome! Subscribed!

Great Start Chip, I'm Looking Forward to Your Thread about the CSA!

Interesting, consider me subscribed.

Lost Cosmonaut, look here and here.

Happy reading

And, great work on the graphics and song, Chip.

May Newt go down and TobyMac rise.

Sunday, February 10, 2013
10:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

Tell those bastards I don't care how independent they are, I'M giving them an order. NOTHING on that Super Bowl except what we tell them to say. Right now, I don't even want a score--that's right, I don't want a score, and Atlanta doesn't want a score. Unless David Duke himself tells you to read the entire boxscore over the air, you don't say a damn word about it except that it was played, and at the end! You hear me???

And you people wonder why everybody listens to Dixie Radio.

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--the Confederate State Security director for the state of North Carolina, to the CEO of RAYCOM Media


North Carolina State stayed atop the college basketball rankings which just came out this afternoon, No. 1 in the Confederate Press media and the RAYCOM/CSA TODAY coaches polls. Kentucky is No. 2, Miami No. 3 in both polls. North Carolina 4th in the writers, 5th in the coaches.

With only five days before the season opening Beeline Experience non-points race, Hardees Cup drivers and racers began arriving this morning in Daytona, Wood Brothers driver Trevor Bayne tells RAYCOM Sports he's itching to get out on the track.

I'm looking forward to Saturday, our team's looking forward to getting in the 21 Ford Motorcraft car and seeing what she's got. We think we can make a run at the 88 car and Hendrick this year. I'm itching to get out there, and I'm sure all the other drivers are too.

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The Beeline Experience 75-lap non-points race is Saturday night at 8 Eastern, 7 Western.

Kellie Cook's 45 points not only led Tennessee's Lady Vols to a 26-point blowout win over Sewanee, it also put UT atop the women's college basketball rankings for the first time in over two decades. Tennessee No. 1 in both polls released this afternoon.

Dixle League teams report to spring training in South America this week. Davis Love III leads the final round of the Bi-Lo Classic in Guyana, delayed a day because of problems on the golf course. He'll tee off in 20 minutes, six-under out of the clubhouse.

Timofey Mozgov continues to make his case for DBA Most Valuable Player honors, racking up 38 points and 22 rebounds as the Dixie Hawks beat the Carolina Cougars 109-78 Sunday night.

Confederate soccer midfielder Justin Mapp scored the goal for Soviet third division FC Rotor Volvograd Sunday that gave it a 1-1 tie with FC Mellalurg, and pushed FC Rotor into second place in the third division standings.

Indiana is the top team up north in men's college basketball this week, and the Super Bowl football game between the Minnesota and Havana teams was played Sunday in Las Vegas. This is RAYCOM Sports Flash.

Media Week starts Tuesday at Daytona, and RAYCOM Sports will be there all week long, through the Beeline Experience, and next week for the Twin 50s and the Daytona 500. Now...back to Geoff Calkins, subbing today for Gary Parrish on the Confederate States' only independent source for sports, RAYCOM Sports Radio.

Guess this was more interesting to youi than Flatwater...sob... .

Just kidding...this looks interesting, tho I hope you'll get back to that one soon too.

This is very interesting Chip. Hope to see more.

I'm working on LoF, too...

I have a lot of ground to cover...and a podcast for that too...This snowstorm is kicking my butt right now lol

That and there's a small matter of Super Bowl XLI...

Sterling...There's been a lot already...A lot of the backstory are in this branches, companions...Willa Cather Landing and Land of Confusion.

Looks real interesting, even if it took me a bit to get an idea of what was going on. I look forward greatly to learning the backstory of this CSA.

Sonus Silentii said:

Looks real interesting, even if it took me a bit to get an idea of what was going on. I look forward greatly to learning the backstory of this CSA.

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Well, the backstory is distributed throughout both of the other existing threads, but the really short version is that the United States broke up during the Great Depression after Franklin D. Roosevelt was assassinated and a coup attempt took place, if memory serves me right. The Confederacy was reestablished in the process and has since turned into a sinister combination of a free-market version of North Korea and apartheid-era South Africa. Essentially, the Great Plains United Republic (the Great Plains states), Texas and California are the chief free powers in North America. The rump United States - which still keeps the old U.S. flag and Great Seal and still often uses the term "United States" in various contexts - is basically the pre-Civil-War North, less New England (which has become its own country, with Vermont splitting off as an independent state), known as the Industrial Republic of North America, and has had a VERY rocky relationship with the GPUR, including a couple of outright wars, and a complicated relationship with the CSA which has veered between hostility and under-the-table attempts to forge an alliance (especially during the administration of Donald Rumsfeld). Several very interesting butterflies, including a much shorter World War II which results in Germany being divided into three instead of two countries (and still not having been reunified as of TTL 2013) and a surviving Communist regime in Russia, though the Soviet Union has long since broken up and the Communists in Russia have to deal with a substantial public opposition inside and outside government. One theme running through the stories is that sports - particularly football - is just as important in the popular culture of TTL North America as OTL, possibly even more important since the Super Bowl, for example, is a true international championship game. Oh, and Cuba is a leftish democracy which is in large part run by African-American exiles from the Confederacy, and more or less allied with the GPUR/Texas/California bloc, and the chief sponsor of the multiracial resistance to the Confederate regime.

I trust Chipperback will correct any of the foregoing if it's incorrect, of course!

Oh, and this question, which I've been wondering about, came back to me while I was writing the bit about the IRNA - why does the IRNA call itself that, and not the United States of America? If they're retaining the old U.S. symbology, down to "The Star-Spangled Banner", and in fact sometimes still using the term "United States (fill in the blank)", it seems to me that logically they should claim to be the legitimate successor government to the old U.S. government. ???

Oh, and this question, which I've been wondering about, came back to me while I was writing the bit about the IRNA - why does the IRNA call itself that, and not the United States of America? If they're retaining the old U.S. symbology, down to "The Star-Spangled Banner", and in fact sometimes still using the term "United States (fill in the blank)", it seems to me that logically they should claim to be the legitimate successor government to the old U.S. government. ???

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Why IRNA? The backers of the coup attempt and the successor government changed the name by design, even in the period after the assassination, the breakup (what some in parts west of the Mississippi term "The Standoff"), there was a lot of sentiment to reuniting the United States and opposition to the what was seen as an overthrow of the FDR.

To quell some of that the power behind the throne, largely a collection of industrialists, bankers and military officials decided to change the name of the country in an effort to control the history in a sense. It has been somewhat successful in that the new name of nation has stuck (with some exceptions ex: The current is still the green Dollar. Navy vessels still are termed as "USS")

Even as the politics have moderated in the nation some, still is still undercurrent of sentiment for a return of the name "United States of America".

As far as the nation itselt. The IRNA is center-right and somewhat authoritarian in terms of cultural expression, social interaction, gender and race relations. A major sticking point of the country, especially since the 1950s is the relationship between the moneyed east and industrial-rural sector to the west. Labor unrest is common.

In terms of foreign policy, there is contention over what the role of the nation should be in the world. The IRNA has a formidable military presence, definitely within the top 5 of the world's militaries to go with a strong, if disjointed, industrial-financial sector.

Among the body politic of the IRNA, there have been three schools of thought since the nation was founded on its role in the world.

The Willkie-Taft School -- Somewhat neutral to isolationist. The IRNA must tend to its own affairs and interests. This is why, while the IRNA stood against the rise of a Confederate apartheid state, it would not get involved in an active stance against the pogroms of the late 1940s/early 1950s.

The Cabot Lodge-Rockefeller School --The IRNA as a bulwark with North America. These two even though they are in the "liberal" party in the IRNA basically proscribe to a more conservative view in most issues, but they differ in their beliefs on the IRNA position in the world. The current President IRNA, Joseph Biden, and his VP Hillary Rodham Riley subscribe to a hightened form of this particular line of policy thought.

The Rumsfeld-Perle School --The IRNA fostering a climate in concertation with like-minded leadership in North American towards a united North American counter to European infleuce, up to and including a reunification of North America to exhance North American infleuence and North American dominance. This doctrine is part of Rumsfeld's effort to build a detente with the CSA in the 1980s, and helping to form a political think tank in 1998 toward these heads known as The Project for a United North American Century

"We can no longer depend on the International Trade Conference or the United Nations to be a fair broker in North American affairs.....American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on forgetting our manifest destiny as Americans. The breakup of 1935-1936 should not have been allowed for it sold out common birthright as Americans and our rightful place in the world. Our main strategy for the 21st century is a renewal of the birthright and the building of governments of North America toward that end." A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm by Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol, and Donald Trump, 2001.

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One theme running through the stories is that sports - particularly football - is just as important in the popular culture of TTL North America as OTL, possibly even more important since the Super Bowl, for example, is a true international championship game.

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Not just sport, the wider popular culture has developed in a different way, and that is one thing I wanted to bring out ITTL, not just the political turmoil but how each of the states have developed not just politically, or militarily, but also spiritually, culturally, even down to what people watch on their TVs and listen to on their radios...Some parts you would recognize from IOTL, and some you may raise an eyebrow or two at.

a surviving Communist regime in Russia, though the Soviet Union has long since broken up and the Communists in Russia have to deal with a substantial public opposition inside and outside government.

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Soviet Russia is "Communist" in name and flag only. Really, its a cross between 1990s IOTL post-August Coup Russia and IOTL China. The Soviet-Confederate relationship is a business opportunity for both sides. How else does a nation that reveres Jerry Falwell get in bed with Vladimir Putin?

Cuba is very similar. They still revere Fidel and Che, but they also revere the tourist trade, Calle Capitalista (the home of the Havana Stock Market), and they love heading down to Shula's by the beachfront for a good steak.

The main figures of the black resistance to the Confederacy, many of the faces you'd recognize from the IOTL Civil Rights Movement fled to Cuba along with many blacks from the CSA and from some of the urban areas in the IRNA. For at least two decade the North wasn't that much better than the South for a black man and woman.

The influence of leaders such as Martin Luther King, Ralph Albernathy, Andrew Young etc. markedly changed Fidel Castro's beliefs on human rights, and socioeconomic liberalization. The human rights issues we see in Cuba IOTL, were replaced by greater openness in Cuban society by 1970 and free elections through the 1970s into Castro leaving power in the 80s, and Martin Luther King becoming the first democratically elected Presidente de Cuba post-1959.

In kind, the Cuban exodus of black North Americans led to those people assimilating into Cuban culture and combining experiences in the deep south and urban North with the culture of Cuba. The result has spawned a unique black expression that has shown up in dance, theatre, and especially in music.

R&B, Jazz, Blues have seen a fusion with Cuban, Creole, Trinidadian, and Jamaican forms for of expression. The result has been the creation of a very different style along side a number of hybrids of cultural expression, each as different as the areas they grew up in. Imagine, James Brown and Maceo jamming with Tito Puente...Its on my MacPod, dude (Yes, Apple...There around...So is Bill Gates...Computers and video games developed. in more nations around the globe...)


As far as the who is who in North America...and the World, because there is a big wide wonderful world..


If you want to know who is who ITTL Planet Earth.

ITTL Western Europe
Why Italians and Greeks feel so broke. The Scandinavian Union, Asia, Africa, and the tale of George Hebert of Arabia.
A short history of North American Conflict

A timeline of the Industrial Republic of North America

Welcome to a Divided North America

Oh by the way...6 days to the Grammys

Saturday...the 2013 auto racing season kicks off in style.

The Beeline Experience at Daytona. 75 laps, non-points, of the world's best drivers from the NASCAR Hardee's Cup Series. 8 Eastern, 7 Western on your home of the champions, and your home in 2013 for every NASCAR Hardee's Cup and Grand National series race....Dixievision 5.

And next week...the Twin 50s on Thursday...and break out that grill you stuck in the garage after the Don Hutson Bowl, because every Sunday is NASCAR Sunday.

Kicking off with the granddaddy of them all...the Daytona 500, live from Daytona International Speedway.

Hmmmmm. Based on what's posted in Willa Cather today, the order from the CSS director in North Carolina to Raycom acquires a lot more significance, to my vantage point, than it did earlier. Before those posted, I'd just assumed that CSS was being dickish as usual, not wanting to give the damnyankee Super Bowl any currency. Now, it looks more as like they're desperately trying to disassociate themselves from something that went completely balls-up; if whatever they were doing had succeeded, I think they'd be wanting to plaster the airwaves with images and reportage as a warning of what happens to dissidents and enemies of the regime.

However, since they're trying as hard as they can to clamp a lid on ANY reporting, I suspect that things have not gone as they wished. We'll just have to wait and see...

By the way, why "Hardee's Cup"? Sure, I know Hardee's is one of the biggest fast-food chains in TTL CSA, but I'd have assumed that Big Tobacco has a lot fewer PR constraints on it in TTL CSA than OTL USA, so the Winston Cup would be able to go right on being the Winston Cup.

It just wouldn't be the Confederacy without NASCAR would it?