Some years ago Dennis McGuire gave me a book written by Joel Garreau. In that book Garreau divided much of North America into what he called
nine nations. As I remember the book was called Nine Nations. He did a good job of describing much of the continent. I believe the could be called a sociological work.
I am going to try to remember enough of my reading of the book those years ago to write a sort of monograph of each of the " nations" he considered much as he considered it.
Below is a list of the "Nations" as Mr. Garreau named them:
~ Quebec
~ New England
~ The foundry
~ Dixie
~ The Islands
~ The Empty Quarter
~ Ecotopia
~ Breadbasket
~ Mexamerica
I lived in "Mexamerica' when I read the book. and failed to take notes on it as I failed with some of the other Nations. I can say the Republic of Mexico is in it. Spanish of the Mexican sort is spoken widely in much of Mexamerica; a good deal of English is spoken there. There is mixing of the two languages especially along the border.
There is plenty of cultural prejudice there. As I remember Joel suggests that "might makes right in this valley of tears."
I add that this Nation of Mexamerica may less of a Nation than most of the other "Nations." For example, The state of Oaxaca and DF seem much less part of the Nation than does the state of New Mexico.
post by Richard for Mago Bill
==================================================
The Empty Quarter of the Nine Nations
The Empty Quarter is on of Garreau's Nine Nations. I spent a significant part of my life in the thee. It is big and relatively lightly populated. A large part of it can be called desert. It extends from the northern deserts of Mexico across the U.S and Canada into the Arctic Circle.
The E.Q. contains gas, oil, cattle, mining, timber, and wheat and the people who work in those industries. Some people are attracted by the quiet and the "elbow room" to be found there.
The Athabascan tar sands of Alberta are in the Empty Quarter. There in Nevada is the Home Farm headquarters of The School of the Natural Order.
North American Indian Peoples live in the Empty Quarter of the Nine Nations. Some of them try to live much as they did long ago. But it is not easy. For example, Acoma, Coleville, Navajo, Ute, Wind River and a fe others have significant control of perhaps 50% of the Uranium found here. Native Americans with oil and gas consult with OPEC. Blackfoot, Sioux, Crow, Spokane, and Northern Cheyenne control a third of the low-sulfur stripable coal here.
The land is beautiful and scars easily. It looks to many of us that much of this beautiful land is being needlessly sacrificed to the need and greed of people we do not know. Fracking and the disposal of water of certain industries seems to be a shameful rape to some here. Water has be scarce here and is now being poisoned. Some have told us to pipe water from the Arctic. Might be a good short term solution. The fresh water of the Arctic was stored in ice. That ices is rapidly melting and flowing into a rising sea.
Triggers for great bombs are made in the part of this "empty zone" closest to the great city of Denver. Testing of hydrogen bombs here still poisons citizens of Utah and disturbs the genetics of deer of North East California.
The south west portion of the US is found in the Empty Quarter. It is there where many of the Western Cowboy films of Hollywood were made. .
posted by Richard
for Mago Bill
8/1/2017