Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession

Lets talk about secession Not exactly the most suitable cocktail party conversation starter anywhere in the country but take that notion deep into the heart of Dixie and you might find yourself running from the possum-hunting conservatives trailer-park lifers and prayer warriors Chuck Thompson encountered during the two years he spent traveling the American South asking the question Would we be better off without em The result is a heavily researched serious inquiry into national divides which is unabashedly controversial often uproarious and always thought-provoking From a church service in Mobile Alabama where the gospel entertainer announces Islam is upon us to a store selling Ku Klux Klan memorabilia on a quaint little street in South CarolinaThompson lifts the green velvet drapes on a South that would seem to belong more to the time of Rhett and Scarlett than the dawn of the twenty-first century By crunching numbers interviewing experts and roaming the not-so-former Confederacy Thompsonan openly disgruntled liberal from the Northwestmakes a compelling case for southern secession What would the new nations look like if Virginia governor Bob McDonnell was elected as the first President of the Confederate States of America If a southern electorate was left to fend for itself while the North did damage control on an economy decimated by cut-rate southern workers who operate as a rival nation within its own borders If the BCS championship football game were replaced by a North vs South Coca Cola Starbucks Blood Bowl If Florida went to the South and Texas to the North in the most complex land-and-population grab in American history Better Off Without Em is a deliberately provocative book whose insight humor fierce and fearless politics and sheer nerve will spark a national debate that is perhaps long overdue.