Potatoes and Opioids

Nations, like people, have a “pivotal event.” It’s the event after which everything changes and sets the tone for what will come next. For Dixie, this event was the War of Northern Aggression, it was after this event that the South was changed. Once the wealthiest part of the Union, it would now be the poorest. Once the leading nation of the Union, boasting four of the first five presidents and ten of the first fifteen, Dixie became an eternal colony and her sons the foot soldiers of the Yankee Empire, sacrificing their blood for an empire that looked down on them. Since 1865, only four Southerners have been elected president and one of them (Wilson) was a resident of New Jersey at the time of his election. Another one (Johnson) betrayed his own nation. Yet another (Carter) was elected largely because of the Watergate backlash, which drove the nation to seek someone they considered a decent and religious man. Even then, Carter barely won against an uninspired Yankee. The final one (Clinton) came to power thanks to an ill-timed recession and the presence of Ross Perot, and he ripped the Democrats from their populist roots. The Bushes, no matter how much they faked being Texan, will never be Dixians.

In the case of Ireland, I would argue that their pivotal event was the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. It is quite difficult to overestimate just how much the Famine changed Ireland. Before the Famine, Ireland was only thought of as nominally Catholic, and the Rising of 1798 was largely led by the minority Protestant population. After the Famine, Ireland became a bastion of staunch Catholicism and would emerge as a quasi-integralist state from the 1930s to arguably the 2000s. The Irish language, although already in decline, was driven to near extinction. Of course, there is the human cost of the Famine. Ireland suffered a major decline in its population, with most estimates at around a 25% loss in population, either by death or emigration. At least initially, it looked as if the Famine finally sapped the Irish of their fighting spirit. For a nation that was able to produce multiple generations that were willing to give their lives to break the yoke of foreign rule, the half century after the Famine was fairly quiet. There was the Famine Rebellion of 1848 and the Fenian Rising of 1867, but these were rather small and poorly planned. It looked as if the Famine did what the might of the English army could not – break the Irish.

However, history had a different plan. After being relatively quiet for over half a century, Ireland erupted in a nationalist fervor beginning in 1916 with the Easter Rising, which would itself lead to the Irish War for Independence, putting Ireland at last on the path to taking her place among the nations of the world. It was a remarkable change of events. It was made all the more remarkable when one considers which generation largely led the Irish Revolution – it was the children of the “Famine Generation” – the generation that was born around the time of the Famine and, as such, the Famine and its aftermath was one of their earliest memories. For as many of Ireland’s children that died in the horrors of the Famine, some of her children did survive, and those children had children of their own. And burning with a love of Ireland and a longing to right her wrongs, as well as a crystalized hatred of foreign rule, they managed to strike a fatal blow against the British. It was an event over 700 years in the making.

In many ways, the opioid epidemic can be viewed as Dixie’s Potato Famine. It has absolutely devastated the native Dixian population, especially the working-class that has long been the backbone of Southern identity. And with that, the native population was weakened thoroughly enough that they could no longer stop radical changes imposed on the South by carpetbaggers, along with the collaboration of some native Dixians, especially among the upper middle-class that decided to sacrifice their identity for material comfort. It is hard to imagine that without the devastation of the opioid epidemic, and combined with unfettered foreign and internal immigration, that any of the recent changes that have devastated the Southland could have been possible.

And never forget, fellow Dixians, how this was all made possible.

Major pharmaceutical companies, along with cherry-picked data and an “asleep at the wheel” FDA, were allowed to market incredibly dangerous and addictive drugs as “non-habit forming.” They then found vulnerable populations, such as working-class Dixians. Doctors, many of them non-Southerners, were ostensibly bribed to prescribe these drugs to our people. And to top it all off, they thought it was funny that we were dying.

What must be done now is that the opioid epidemic must become our Potato Famine, at least in how it relates to its long-term results. Just as the Famine Generation produced the generation that would finally break British rule in Ireland, out of the ashes of our opioid epidemic a new generation will arise. And this generation must be trained to become even more determined. If this current generation cannot free Dixie, then it will fall on that generation, the “Opioid Generation,” and if their generation is insufficient, then it will be their children who will be tasked with freeing Dixie, just as it was in Ireland.

The Irish children who suffered under the Famine knew the horrors of the English yoke, just as the Southern children who have grown up with the loss of a loved one thanks to the opioid epidemic. They must be reminded of what happened and who caused it, impressing on them a love of their people and a desire to right these wrongs, just as the Irish children born around the time of the Great Famine did. If this current generation fails to free Dixie, then it will be up to that generation to free Dixie or teach their children to do the same.

History can take long and confusing turns. What looked to be a fatal blow in the 1840s ended up creating the generation that lead the Irish Revolution. Dixians must do the same.