The Civil War, Slavery, and History

I have a uniquely American family tree.
One of my ancestors, a poor farmer named James Farren, joined the Illinois Calvary in 1862. He fought in every major battle in the western front for the Union Army, and remained enlisted until his company was disbanded in 1864.
Another one of my ancestors was a poor farmer from Greene County, Tennessee. His name was Thomas White. He was recruited into the Confederate Army in 1863. After very little training he was sent to the front at Vicksburg. He was captured in his first battle, sent to a horrible Civil War prison, got sick and died.
It is likely that my ancestors were on opposite sides of the same battle. I like to think that they met, but that's just idle thought.

Neither of my ancestors ever owned a slave. Based on the census records I've seen, I doubt either of them ever met more than a handful of black people in their entire lives.
I don't know why Thomas White or James Farren decided to go to war, but it's unlikely that slavery was a major motivation for either of them.
I bring this up because people today tend to simplify things to the point that they aren't very accurate.

Which brings me to Robert E. Lee and George Washington.
There are some people who want to tear down all the George Washington statues along with those of General Lee.
Those people are still a minority, but they are ideologically consistent (i.e. no more slaveowners).

Most people are against denouncing Washington (aka the Father Of The Nation), and the common distinction I most often hear is that the Civil War was primarily about slavery while the Revolution was about independence.

It sounds good.
However, there is a problem with this argument that Cassiodorus sort of touched on the other day - much of history is intentionally suppressed.
This goes double for the American Revolution. Because a case can be made that the American Revolution was also fought to preserve slavery.
The item in question for this essay is Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation.

This historic proclamation, dated November 7, 1775 and issued from on board a British warship lying off Norfolk, Virginia, by royal governor and Scottish aristocrat John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, offered the first large-scale emancipation of slave and servant labor in the history of colonial British America. It grew out of Dunmore’s efforts to counter an impending attack on his capital of Williamsburg by patriot militia in the spring of 1775, when he several times threatened to free and arm slaves to defend the cause of royal government. By the time he retreated offshore he was already gathering slaves seeking refuge; his November proclamation commanding Virginians to support the crown or be judged traitors now formally offered freedom to all slaves and indentured servants belonging to rebels and able to bear arms for the crown. Within weeks, several hundred slaves, many with their families, had joined him. They enlisted in what Dunmore christened his “Ethiopian Regiment” and formed the bulk of the royal troops that first defeated patriot forces but then fell victim to disease and attack, evacuating the Chesapeake Region for New York by August 1776.
Dunmore’s proclamation offered freedom only to those who would flee from rebel masters and serve the crown. Its purpose was strategic, to disable rebellion, rather than humanitarian, yet its effect was rather the reverse. White southerner colonists swung to oppose royal authority as it appeared that Dunmore and his “Damned, infernal, Diabolical” proclamation were inciting slave insurrection: nothing, it can be argued, so quickly lost the South for the crown.

Let's chew on that for a moment. "Nothing, it can be argued, so quickly lost the South for the crown."

Southern whites rallied to defend slavery against those who would free the black slaves.
Is that the story of the Civil War or the Revolutionary War?
Trick question! It's both.

It's true that most blacks that fought in the Revolutionary War fought for the rebels, with the promise that they would be set free after their service. This is how it has always been done throughout western history.
Not this time.
With very few exceptions, black slaves who fought for this nation's independence were promptly re-enslaved.
Rhode Island was an exception.

As for the black loyalists, many were left behind and re-enslaved. However, an honest effort was made to evacuate them at the end of the war, and thousands of former black slaves were transported to freedom in Canada and London.
Thomas Jefferson referred to them as "the fugitives from these States".

So if the measuring stick is limited to the fates of the black slaves, the bad guys won the Revolutionary War.
It's not how you were taught in school.

Now let's look specifically at Washington and Lee.
Both had reservations about slavery, but only Lee freed his slaves (in 1862).
He also famously illegally taught his slaves to read. Not to mention his efforts to liberate slaves and fund their move to Liberia.

Washington, OTOH, was known to ship slaves to the West Indies that he considered lazy (i.e. to their death). This included the pregnant, old, and crippled.
As for his slaves that ran away to fight for the British, Washington tried to "reclaim what he saw as his property". The British refused to honor Washington's demands because it would mean "delivering them up, some possibly to execution, and others to severe punishment."

There is no such thing as a good slaveowner, but Washington was a thousand times worse than Lee by any measure.
So who's up for tearing down the Washington Monument?

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Shockwave's picture

Mexican-American War

Abolitionists saw the war as an attempt by the slave states to extend slavery and enhance their power with the creation of additional slave states out of the soon-to-be-acquired Mexican lands. One abolitionist who agreed with that interpretation was author Henry David Thoreau, who was incarcerated in July 1846 when he refused to pay six years’ worth of back poll taxes because he felt the U.S. government’s prosecution of the war with Mexico was immoral.

up
0 users have voted.

The political revolution continues

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
That one had something to do with slavery also, though it may not have been the primary cause (one has to figure in the Napoleonic ambitions of one Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna). Newly independent Mexico had outlawed slavery, many of the Tejas colonists had come from the US South and owned slaves, and this was an open source of friction.

On the other hand, Mexico had not immediately become a republic, having a homegrown monarchy at first, and was always at risk of the Strong Man On Horseback (which Santa Anna consistently looked and often acted like). So again, not so simple as all that.

up
0 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Cassiodorus's picture

as a slaveholder's revolt.

Were you planning at any point to address the issue of Confederate statues?

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus
I made a perfectly clear point.
You don't seem to want to hear it.

up
0 users have voted.
Wink's picture

@gjohnsit
a slave state. But I doubt he was thinking very much about slavery as he was dodging bullets trying to wear out the will of Jolly old England to continue fighting a war looking grimmer and grimmer before the will of colonial farmers wore out, slaves and slavery having damn little to do with the battle.
As for General Lee and most of the Southern Generals, most of whom trained and studied at West Point, a northern fort... it had to be weird to "choose sides," then fight against Generals just weeks ago they were in school with. The wonder, though, is what took the North so long to win? And, then, feeling badly, I guess, for their fellow West Point students, essentially forgave them for losing. The equivalent, I suppose, being the Allies, having just spanked the Nazis in WWII, telling them they could continue wearing their Nazi uniforms and continue their Nazi ways. That if anyone gives them any trouble just send them to their concentration camps. With the condition that they keep their business inside the Fatherland. Any "exapansion" ideas met with more Allies shock and awe.

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

@Wink

it had to be weird to "choose sides," then fight against Generals just weeks ago they were in school with. The wonder, though, is what took the North so long to win?

The answer to that question also happens to be the reason why there are all those Robert Lee statues:
He was one of the greatest generals in American history.

Just consider the Battle of Chancellorsville.
Lee and the Confederates were outnumbered more than 2 to 1, yet he still won.

There's a reason Lincoln wanted Lee to lead his army.

up
0 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@gjohnsit

The bad guys won the Revolutionary War

so

who's up for tearing down the Washington Monument?

Oh yeah gjohnsit that's PERFECTLY CLEAR and nobody should have been confused AT ALL about what you meant there.

Huh?

Let's review the actual argument for taking down the Confederate statues and putting them in museums.

By now, Americans interested in the Confederate monument removal project have had it drilled into them that the monuments were erected decades after the end of the Civil War as testimonies to white supremacy in all its various manifestations: segregation, disenfranchisement, lynching, peonage, and second-class citizenship across the board. But the monuments were not merely commemorative. They were designed to conceal a past that their designers wanted to suppress. That past was the period after Reconstruction and before Jim Crow, years in which African Americans in the former Confederacy exercised political power, ran for public office, published newspapers, marched as militias, ran businesses, organized voluntary associations, built schools and churches: a time, in other words, when they participated as full members of society.

Can we start there?

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Anja Geitz's picture

@Cassiodorus

Would be what, exactly? A big win for racism? History? Charlottesville?

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Cassiodorus's picture

@Anja Geitz The whole idea of removing Confederate statues and putting them in museums is that the act of removing Confederate statues and putting them in museums does not occur "all by itself," or in a vacuum. It's symbolic politics, and the idea behind symbolic politics is that somewhere down the line symbolism is supposed to contribute to some more concrete form of transformation, at least potentially. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Generally, though, if you want to rally people behind a concrete initiative, you'll need a symbolic initiative as a starter. Bernie's rallies didn't accomplish anything all by themselves. And your recent rallies for Colin Kaepernick are not likely to accomplish anything, but how many of us here can get a thousand people to show up at a corporate office with a cause?

The idea of putting up the statues themselves, however, was also a symbolic politics, and the point of that politics was to reinforce the ideological ambitions of the local Jim Crow ruling classes by empowering a representation of a selective history. I don't think the financiers of the statues would have put all of the time, money, and resources they contributed to said statues if they didn't reinforce anything in particular. It's actually more commonsensical than Jane Dailey makes it sound. A reverential statue of Robert E. Lee, displayed in an architectural site of power, says "this is the land of Robert E. Lee and his ideological progeny."

Of course, if the main objection is to removing anything that was there, maybe the nice petit-bourgeois lovers of Robert E. Lee art could finance another statue of Robert E. Lee's slaves, and put it in a nice place as well?

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Anja Geitz's picture

@Cassiodorus

Like those of the Bernie rallies were successful because of the ideas behind them; Medicare for All; $15 minimum wage; No TPP, etc.,

I'm still not clear what concrete idea is behind removing the statues besides the symbolic gesture they represent? Is the goal of removing them to begin a movement of breaking through the current Jim Crow policies that adversely affect Black children in this country?

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

CS in AZ's picture

@Anja Geitz

There's no organized effort with clearly outlined goals that apply to everyone who wants various statues moved. For some people it seems like more of an emotional thing around symbols of power and dominance. They are just angry and tired of racism, and are lashing out at some of its most obvious symbols. I don't think they have goals, beyond just winning a victory over the white supremacists who revere these confederate statues. Nothing rallies opposition like a parade of nazis and the KKK.

Other people are more level-headed about it and are looking at the real history that has been obscured by civil war revisionists who put them up in the first place, and consciously seeking to convey a more honest history. For some it might be seen as a step toward a less racist society overall. And obviously there's also another contingent who are using the whole controversy for political reasons, the pro-trump versus anti-trump forces, with civil war statues as proxies for their worldview.

There's not just one reason or one goal that can be applied to everyone who has decided they have a stake in this on one side or another.

up
0 users have voted.
Anja Geitz's picture

@CS in AZ

That nothing of consequence will be the outcome of this latest controversy. Removing old Confederate memorials might make some people feel like they've done something in response to Neo-Nazi's and our country's history of racism, but the reality is that Neo-nazis will still be here as well as societal racism. Truth is, in the quiet school room where I tutor at-risk kids each week, the efforts of this symbolic gesture will benefit their lives not at all. Alas, so much energy expended for so little advantage. And on it goes until the next controversy is beamed across the media air waves. The next murder, the next rally, the next provocation. Wash, rinse, repeat.

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Wink's picture

@Cassiodorus

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

@Cassiodorus
Your rude reply is very discouraging.

up
0 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@gjohnsit is discouraging as well.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

edg's picture

@Cassiodorus

The peak of Confederate statue building was at the 50 year and 100 year anniversaries of the start of the Civil War. It really had little or nothing to do with your phony claim of white supremacy and lots to do with the anniversaries.

up
0 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@edg that you have the wisdom to claim that the statues have nothing to do with white supremacy, unlike Jane Dailey, who is a mere associate professor of history at the University of Chicago.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Meteor Man's picture

@edg
It would be interesting to see the % of statues that celebrate historical war heroes warmongers.

up
0 users have voted.

"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

CS in AZ's picture

@edg

Was there a spate of statues erected to honor WWII losers during those years? I've looked for some kind of evidence that this is a thing, but I can't find any. Honoring the losers of a war 50 years later seems like a stretch; 100 years later, even more so.

Other explanations are far more likely.

up
0 users have voted.
dervish's picture

@edg Most of the monuments I'm familiar with went up between 1900 and say 1925. The reason is simple, people wanted to honor grandpa with some recognition before he died. Once the veterans passed on, fewer of these monuments were erected, on either side.

up
0 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

dervish's picture

@edg Most of the monuments I'm familiar with went up between 1900 and say 1925. The reason is simple, people wanted to honor grandpa with some recognition before he died. Once the veterans passed on, fewer of these monuments were erected, on either side.

up
0 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

is similar to yours gjohnsit, 3 of my great great great grandfathers fought in the war 1 Union (survived ), 2 Confederate ( killed in action ) and I can tell you from family stories passed down the reason they fought was about duty to their country not about slavery. They were all simple farmers ( not slave owners) just doing what they were told the same as the soldiers in the ME are doing now. I'm not making up excuses just giving a perspective from my point of view, I have a lot of mixed feelings concerning the Civil War to many to get into now. As far as the statues are concerned I think all of them Confederate, Union and any other war figures should at least be removed from government property and placed in museums, cemeteries or possibly battlefield sites with both sides of the story told.

up
0 users have voted.

They looked at Europe and saw absolute monarchs and also saw a lot of questioning of the monarchies by people like Voltaire and John Locke. They also saw a slightly more democratic monarchy in England which maybe offered an example of something to build on. The Constitution was revolutionary for its time and the Declaration of Independence did say "All men are created equal". These were radical ideas that inspired the French revolution and later revolutions. Yeah Jefferson was a slave owner, but he also created the basis for emancipation which was huge.

up
0 users have voted.

Beware the bullshit factories.

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Timmethy2.0
That was the only problem with his noble ideal. It excluded all women and anyone who wasn't fish-belly pale. Blum 3

up
0 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

So...if the institution of slavery had a perceptible effect on a historical event, then we now understand that historical event as being because of slavery? So a complicated historical event, which arguably happened for many reasons, is now rendered as "The Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery?" Because the abolitionism of a British aristocrat got the South on the Revolutionary side?

In other words, if slavery is involved in a historical event at all, we understand it as the paramount cause of that event--perhaps even its exclusive cause.

I'm grateful to know about Lord Dunmore's proclamation and its effect on the pre-Revolutionary South. But the fact that a threat to the institution of slavery convinced those who ran the Southern States to revolt doesn't mean that the Revolutionary War was "fought to preserve slavery." What about the industrial North? They had their own reasons to revolt. Likely those reasons didn't involve slavery, since their economy wasn't run on slave labor. It was run on some other shitty things, but not that.

I realize that this essay is actually trying to complicate reductive attitudes out there with facts that don't fit, and I'm grateful. But I'm also a little freaked out by how basically all it takes is for people to talk about slavery and racism and Nazis, and lots of people are willing to abandon complex thinking and reduce their understanding of both history and politics to something frighteningly simplistic. It's even worse because there's a moral imperative, sometimes expressed, sometimes not, to agree with the reductive explanation, else be considered a racist. Sort of like a few years ago we had to agree with reductive explanations or be considered traitors and terrorist sympathizers.

.

These days, it seems like you have to be reductive to be good. Complexity is for easier times and issues. We can't afford it when there are Nazis and racists threatening Black people. Just like we couldn't afford it in the early years of this century because there were terrorists threatening the United States.

This looks an awful lot like the white left's version of 9/11. Because we aren't right-wing, and we probably don't have a hell of a lot of sympathy for them--and understandably so, given how they've often acted--it might be unclear that for a right-wing person, the spectacle of a foreign power destroying skyscrapers in New York City created just as much a moral imperative for them as racism and Nazism does for left-wing white people: a moral imperative to defend and protect their nation, to which they had allegiance, against those trying to destroy it. Therefore it was necessary to stop thinking complex thoughts about foreign relations and a bunch of inconvenient facts about the attack, and fall in line to protect your country. In order to be on the moral side under those conditions, you had to abandon any doubts or complexities and accept whatever the leadership of the country said.

For us, the spectacle of Nazis and Black people clashing creates the moral imperative to side against the Nazis and fall in line behind whatever Black people and left-wing white allies might be opposing them. It's a moral imperative to side with the oppressed against the oppressor, Black people against white people, and left-wing people against right-wing people. I'd like to say it's a moral imperative to defend human rights, which it used to be, but that concept is basically dead now even with people who are trying hard not to get murdered by racists. If that weren't the case, nobody would talk about white people's freedom to walk to the store without being shot in the head by a cop as a "white privilege." If not getting arbitrarily murdered constitutes a privilege--rather than a right--then the concept of basic human rights is dead.

But that's a tangent. The fact is that there is no longer much room for a moral politics which manages to both oppose racism--and, of course, Nazism--and also to support the values of reason: openness to complexity, willingness to listen and to learn, skepticism without limit but also without vitriol, rigorous analysis based on as much discoverable fact as you can muster, and respect for dissent. Pretty soon, there will be no room at all.

It doesn't help that the whole thing looks like a macabre puppet show to me, with the wealthy white establishment at the very least reaping rich benefits from these events and the reductionist politics which arises from them, if not actively engaging in manipulation.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

dervish's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal There is a call to purge history of everything that doesn't comport with current sensibilities. The reactionary elements of history are to be purged, and then afterwards, we'll purge math, science and other disciplines from reactionary elements too. The Chinese did this, so did the French, and many others.

In no case did it end well.

up
0 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Cassiodorus's picture

@dervish

There is a call to purge history of everything that doesn't comport with current sensibilities.

But nobody really cares about them or their arguments. Once again, from Jane Dailey:

By now, Americans interested in the Confederate monument removal project have had it drilled into them that the monuments were erected decades after the end of the Civil War as testimonies to white supremacy in all its various manifestations: segregation, disenfranchisement, lynching, peonage, and second-class citizenship across the board. But the monuments were not merely commemorative. They were designed to conceal a past that their designers wanted to suppress. That past was the period after Reconstruction and before Jim Crow, years in which African Americans in the former Confederacy exercised political power, ran for public office, published newspapers, marched as militias, ran businesses, organized voluntary associations, built schools and churches: a time, in other words, when they participated as full members of society.

This is, then, a debate about whether or not Jim Crow should be celebrated with statues or put in museums. It's not about "purging history," nor is it about "current sensibilities." It's about what kind of living history you want in your town square.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

dervish's picture

@Cassiodorus hardly celebrates Jim Crow. Removing it is historical revisionism, YMMV.

up
0 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Cassiodorus's picture

@dervish No need to argue Jane Dailey's finer points, I suppose.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Wink's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

I couldn't guess where you were going to steer the narrative from one paragraph to the next. I want to address all the original ideas you were juggling, and respond with the fullness they deserve. I can't muster it without beads of blood popping out on my forehead, so I'll limit myself to passages that really snagged me:

I'm also a little freaked out by how basically all it takes is for people to talk about slavery and racism and Nazis, and lots of people are willing to abandon complex thinking and reduce their understanding of both history and politics to something frighteningly simplistic.

This is the heavy bell that is rung in these melancholy times. It vibrates in the distant background over much of what I read — and what people write — at places where people are trying to think. To add to the belligerent cloud of outrage spewn over the extremes is to miss the point entirely. The real danger we face is the inability of so many to step up and interface with the Complex System that is now ruling our lives. Instead, on full display, is America's obsession with the symptoms of their inverted totalitarian government. The people do not address the cause, which highlights a national weakness of character and state of denial.

There's a moral imperative, sometimes expressed, sometimes not, to agree with the reductive explanation, else be considered a racist. Sort of like a few years ago we had to agree with reductive explanations or be considered traitors and terrorist sympathizers.

Those are good examples of the free-for-all that erupts when a people focus on the details of the extremes rather than analyzing the Complex System that is bringing the extremes into existence, many times as a result of festering inequality and injustice. But, we all know that.

I'd like to say it's a moral imperative to defend human rights, which it used to be, but that concept is basically dead now even with people who are trying hard not to get murdered by racists.... If not getting arbitrarily murdered constitutes a privilege--rather than a right--then the concept of basic human rights is dead.

But that's a tangent.

No, that's not a tangent. It's the crux problem and it's the only solution — especially in a Complex System, which cannot be corrected directly. Any direct hit, like an assassination, or a targeted propaganda campaign, or a regime change, or a draconian law enforcement crackdown, will always, always result in horrific unintended consequences.

The only way to survive is to stay ahead of the System and proactively create a utopia (universal human rights or income) that preempts the formation of the extreme problems in the first place. But, we know that, too.
::

Oh, and about those monuments: It strikes me as the uniquely American attempt to solve inconvenient history problems by giving themselves a prefrontal lobotomy. (This is the principle by which, if it wasn't you who stole their land and resources, and all but annihilated them — but it was, instead, your grandfather who did it and then bequeathed it to you — too bad for them, you don't owe those losers anything.) I've never personally met an American who was not of this opinion.

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal that "Omigod we gotta tear down monuments because of slaves." But that's not the best argument for taking down Confederate statues and putting them in museums, not by a long shot. As I've argued here, the best argument for taking down Confederate statues is that they served, in real life, as a reinforcement of Jim Crow. No statue of George Washington ever did as much because, as you've pointed out here, the Revolutionary War served for quite a few people (in quite a few non-slave states) as more than a slaveholder's revolt.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus

You see who you are. Arguing over any of this is ridiculous, as is spending money to move all of this old shit a majority of people could care less about. For those who happen to see them and happen to think about who they are and what they represent when they do, many do not see them as a reinforcement of Jim Crow. They see them as a reminder of the injustice of Jim Crow and a trajic and bloody civil war - yes, another fcking war in our history.

I think those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it, so don't be a monster to your fellow man and war ought to be a crime and put in a museum.

My grandparents came here from Italy in 2006, well after the civil war and all it means to whomever. We truly had not a gd thing to do with any of it. When I look around at this country, all I see is a country that has no respect for people or the planet. I regret that my grandparents ever came here, which is why I applied for dual Italian citizenship for me, my daughter, and my grandchildren. One of us has already escaped to Sweden. The rest of us have a golden ticket to get the fck out of here whenever we want.

There is a saying: don't applaud, throw money. This whole statue thing is just more identity politics. While the 1% are ratcheting up war and stealing food out of the mouths of babies and the old and sick to redistribute even more money up, politically aware factions are arguing over a hunk of bronze. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns, it is the culture of Americans. This country is nuts.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Cassiodorus's picture

@dkmich A statue of Robert E. Lee is not a Rorschach test. It's a pretty specific thing, and it was put in a specific place in a specific time to achieve a specific purpose. Nobody thinks it was put there to free Black people from 300 years of bad legacy.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Cassiodorus
that makes him such a lightning rod? Everybody with the surname "Lee" wants him as a relative, and a vocal minority want his statues gone. Does this compute?

If you ask me, which you didn't, the best place for Confederate statues is in a Confederate cemetery among the men they led to their deaths.

up
0 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

dervish's picture

@TheOtherMaven and it makes a great deal of sense.

up
0 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

@TheOtherMaven

Great point!

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Cassiodorus

Of course, Lee is Lee. I am not arguing historical facts. How those facts are perceived and the emotions they arouse are not universal. You seem to think your perception of him is the only correct one and should, therefore, be everyone's perception. That isn't going to happen on Lee or anything/anyone else.

Lee and other despicable Confederate characters in history create a visceral reaction in you. To others, they may be heroes. To others, they are perceived somewhere in between or not thought about at all. You do not get to tell others what to think or how to feel about it. You just don't.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Cassiodorus's picture

@dkmich may not be the "only correct one," but some interpretations matter more in a political sense than others. Reverential Confederate statues were erected in the first place because the nice city patrons who paid for them knew that full well.

Or let's try this another way. If we erected statues of Lee's slaves next to statues of Lee, would that not matter at all, because all statues are polysemic?

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus @Cassiodorus

I'm sure you saw it. There was a picture on FB of a black slave with whip marks on his back. Imagine it a statue next to Lee. Whatever the original intent for erecting it, you can be sure knowledge of the intent is long gone.

Some people looking at this would say "he should have done what he was told". You know, the same BS you see on FB when cops beat/shoot people they're arresting. Others would look at this and cry in empathy for the horror and pain this man endured. I know you are an academic, and you place greater credence on what is said by someone who has spent a life time researching a topic. I do too. But, you have to admit that how we each react to a fact is an individual experience. No one man's experience is more credible than another.

Scouraged-Back-Private-Gordon-1863-M.Brady_.jpg

The Scourged Back: How Runaway Slave and Soldier Private Gordon Changed History

Instead of tearing Lee down, maybe a statue erected to this man should be placed next to each and every one of his.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@dkmich It's not just that it's identity politics. It's that it isn't even GOOD identity politics. It's going to increase the already pretty high chances that Black people in this culture are going to get murdered, and for what? Having an empty space where a statue used to be.

Getting Black children out of inferior schools where they were consigned because of their race is a goal worth risking people's lives for. Ending state-sanctioned racist murder is. Getting poison out of the water Black people use so that the kids' IQs don't descend daily is. There's a lot of things that would benefit Black people specifically, and reform or revolutionize their living conditions, and strike a blow against the specific oppressions that have targeted them for hundreds of years, and that have not, by and large, targeted people who descend mostly from Europeans.

This isn't even good identity politics. This is identity politics rendered unthreatening to the system. The increased threat will be, as far as I can see, mostly relegated to the bottom 3 or 4 economic percentiles, and especially to the Black people at that economic level.

It's a perfect movement for this era: a combination of window-dressing and demolition that will probably create worse conditions for people in the bottom half of our society's power structure when all is said and done.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Anja Geitz's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Getting Black children out of inferior schools where they were consigned because of their race is a goal worth risking people's lives for. Ending state-sanctioned racist murder is. Getting poison out of the water Black people use so that the kids' IQs don't descend daily

These are fights that will have appreciable benefits for the people still fighting racists policies. I doubt the same could be said of telling a mother who's child has been poisoned with led based water that at least the confederate statue in the town square is gone.

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Anja Geitz That's why I was so blown away by somebody telling me the statues were a provocation. In a country where a 12-year-old gets blown away by cops and then the cops are let off with no charges?

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

dervish's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal The poisoned water of Flint isn't enough? Why is a statue a trigger when these are not?
Ending police brutality and having a clean environment should be higher prioirities than parks management.

up
0 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

It's going to increase the already pretty high chances that Black people in this culture are going to get murdered, and for what? Having an empty space where a statue used to be.

And what factual basis do you base this opinion of yours upon?

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus Well, is there going to be a result other than a blank space where the statue used to be?

Or are you questioning the notion that this issue pisses some white racists off enough to murder?

Of course, there is no way to quantify that until there are enough years of data on the body count. That would be after the fact, of course, and the study would have to be carefully done to sort out the effect of taking down the Confederate statues from other effects.

If you're asking on what I base my statement, I base it on the fact that I've lived around, if not Nazis, at least plenty of white Southern racists in my life. Every one of them felt aggrieved. Every one felt they had been done wrong. Every one thought Black people were being given an unfairly good deal, while they were being left to languish, and every one thought Black people and rich white people, especially the government, were collaborating against them.

Their response to perceived insult was not fear or grief but rage.

They deeply value their culture and history. They treat it as their cherished inheritance and birthright, and as the last thing they're holding on to in a world that has rejected them. Coming for that is walking up and spitting in their eye.

Can I prove it? Of course not. How could I, until after it's happened?

But I know these people fairly well. If somebody else who has lived a long time around, or been close to, white Southern racists has a different view of them I'd like to hear it.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal Otherwise it's always the same argument: "We can't do X for fear of pissing off the white racists."

Well, is there going to be a result other than a blank space where the statue used to be?

At least a plaque telling the nice Lee-worshipers that they can visit their sacred statue in a museum, with directions to the museum?

I've been pretty consistent here in arguing that it has to be done in concert with a campaign to change the way history is taught. You could take each of the acts comprising a revolution, and argue about it that "well, that won't do anything." And once you've convinced yourself that nothing is worth doing because in itself any particular act won't accomplish anything, you're no longer a revolutionary.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus I don't believe the possible benefits are worth the risks.
My support for the risks would increase in proportion to my perception of the possible benefits. There are many things that I think would be worth the risk. This just isn't one of them.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal who are above the law, then we need a revolution.

And please factor climate change mass death (amidst other forms of capitalist mass immiseration) into your cost-benefit analysis. "Gee, we'd only be safe if we didn't provoke the neo-Confederates." Um, no.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus I never feel safe.
For the reasons you mention, and some additional ones.

I'm trying to spend the time I have left--we have left--as well as I can. I assume most people are doing the same, except for those who are being paid to make things worse, and a minority of shitheads who make things worse for free (Nazis are among the latter). And the owners, of course.

Taking down the statues is not worth a single human life, in my estimation. The people in the movement have a different opinion. That's their right. But I'm not going to join or support their movement. And it seems to me that the goal of the movement will antagonize the worst racists and activate them--with little or no discernible gain, certainly no material gain, for Black people. That's the key part of my argument against the movement. Not the incurring of risk, but the incurring of risk for something that to me seems to accomplish little.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

any port in a storm, any excuse when the 1% is on the prowl. Like pedophiles, they seek out the most vulnerable. Black schools suck because they are the children most easily victimized. Blacks are persecuted, incarcerated, and murdered because they are least likely to afford a good lawyer. If we address income equality and provide health care and free education for all, open minded, bi-racial couples will take care of the rest. Once that happens, who will become the next group of victims? Human nature being what it is, I cannot envision a society, particularly in this country, where there isn't some class of people not getting fck'd over.

Statues do not make most people more inclined to hate and go out and kill people. There are always exceptions to any rule. Abortions make some people hate and kill. Maybe we should remove all clinics so as not to offend anyone or encourage some wacko to shoot some doctor. I don't care what Lee did. He's dead. Hip, hip hoorah! The bastard obviously had it coming. Every time I see a statue of him, I can go over and dance on his grave. When they put up a statue of Obama, can I demand it be removed or will I be told that is racist too? This is such a totally unproductive debate and exercise.

Money is the great equalizer in this society, and it is where the 99% should be focused.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@dkmich I think you misunderstood me.

I was saying that taking down the statues was likely to activate hard-right people across the country and enrage them, probably with the result of some people getting killed. Taking down the statues will probably get people killed. Leaving them up doesn't.

As for integrating schools, I was talking about the movement in the 50s to do so. Legal segregation can't be ascribed to income inequality. I was saying that that was a cause worth risking lives for.

As for environmental justice issues, ending income inequality would help with that, but you'd also have to eliminate the notion that somebody has to live next to a toxic waste dump or that somebody has to put up with lead in their water because the government can't be bothered to spend money to fix it.

We could argue about the idea that, because Black people are more likely to be shot by cops than white people, that that constitutes murder motivated by racism. You would argue probably that more white people get shot than Black people by cops, even though Black people, especially Black men are more likely to be shot--much more likely.

My beliefs, however, look like this:

The cops come for Black men, and to some extent Latino men, first. They like to start with shooting Black and some brown people. But that doesn't mean they have any problem with shooting white people, as long as they aren't rich. I'm under no illusions that my white skin is a guaranteed protection. The difference is, seems LE actively seeks out the Black men (and sometimes Latino men) to harass. In a lot of those cases, the harassment turns to murder.

That's my position. We disagree on some things. But I don't think we disagree on the statues.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus Taking down the statues won't change how history is taught or understood without additional correlative actions which nobody is talking about taking, much less actually taking. Taking down the statue of Jefferson Davis--or George Washington, for that matter--won't do any harm to Jim Crow the historical phenomenon or--which to me is more important--to Jim Crow's analogs in the present day.

I'd say I've come as close to fighting Jim Crow as a white person of my generation could, since the two Bush installations only happened because Black voters were being purged off the rolls, and those who remained on the rolls were having their votes thrown out (sometimes literally into the Atlantic ocean, so I heard). If that's not a modern-day Jim Crow I don't know what is, and I was in the thick of that battle.

So I'd think if people were upset about Jim Crow, they might consider looking into racist election fraud in this country, which continues apace. But the reason they don't is probably the same reason that we don't hear as much about murderous cops right now, but rather focus mostly on the Nazis that aren't in the police force--to the extent that we're focusing on living racists at all, rather than dead ones. It's the same reason that we don't hear a lot about Black children in Michigan being systematically poisoned because poor people generally, and Black people especially, get to live near toxic waste dumps and have lead in their water, and the government just lets it ride, just like the Standing Rock Sioux are going to get to have toxic petroleum in theirs. It's because those fights are too hard, perhaps even impossible to win. So people are choosing tactics which could provide a win. The fact that the win will produce very small gains while taking the risk level of Black people living in this culture and jacking it up a few more notches hasn't dissuaded organizers. Nor have they spent two minutes, apparently, considering that if the corporate media, which is owned and run by rich white people, is giving them saturation coverage, they are probably doing something wrong.

The only part of the mainstream media I know about that is controlled by anybody Black is Oprah Winfrey's empire. She's an extremely smart person.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Taking down the statues won't change how history is taught or understood without additional correlative actions which nobody is talking about taking, much less actually taking.

You could actually find the activists who are trying to do stuff about present-day Jim Crow.

It's the same reason that we don't hear a lot about Black children in Michigan being systematically poisoned because poor people generally, and Black people especially, get to live near toxic waste dumps and have lead in their water, and the government just lets it ride, just like the Standing Rock Sioux are going to get to have toxic petroleum in theirs. It's because those fights are too hard, perhaps even impossible to win.

Black Lives Matter didn't just disappear because their causes haven't been in the headlines this month.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus Perhaps the fact that they aren't, and this statue thing is, should make us ask some questions about both.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cassiodorus

of removing the statues has brought about discussions all over the country about our history, which is a good thing, and I'm at the point of thinking the statues are now a good thing because they represent an opportunity to talk about the TRUTH of our history!

The problem I am trying to avoid is removing them in a vacuum, just taking them down without an educational component. I sense the entire issue of education is anathema to Democrats.

up
0 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@Linda Wood But I'm not convinced that nobody is out there trying to change the way history is being taught. At least the millennials know about Howard Zinn and his famous book.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus
But I also think the entire subject of the substance of American public education is still volatile on the left and the right.

up
0 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@Linda Wood If there's any volatility, it's that people (right, left, doesn't matter) are slowly waking up to the elite consensus, which is to say, privatized testing nightmare under Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind. Next stop: vouchers!

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus

... As I've argued here, the best argument for taking down Confederate statues is that they served, in real life, as a reinforcement of Jim Crow. ...

I kinda thought that was the obvious and main argument and thanks for bringing it up! Other aspects relating to this, and of importance/interest, seem to have somehow obscured this, along with the fact that this continues as a rallying point for racists wishing to bring back 'the good old days' when people could be enslaved by anyone, not just prison owners/management and corporations, just as the latter desire them to do, in order to have the ability to enslave all Poors, including those currently being used for this. Official Debtors Prison resurgences aren't sufficient for profits or for the top fraction of the 1% to blatantly have personal slaves of any hue.

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Ellen North Taking them down will give the racists far more rallying power than leaving them up did, honestly.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

that taking them down without the public discussion, in an educational format, i.e. workshops, town halls, college courses holding open forums, whatever would open the subject to peaceful, civil, examination of the truth of our history, would do just what you say. It would act as an assault on the people you are describing, and their knee-jerk response would lead to violence, as we've seen.

But I agree with the people who say just leaving them there without comment is an assault on everyone else, an assault on the truth. If we had an even tiny amount of real history being taught to the majority of Americans, north and south, we would have removed those statues, or simply recognized them for what they are, long ago.

up
0 users have voted.
Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@Cassiodorus @Cassiodorus

the best argument for taking down Confederate statues is that they served, in real life, as a reinforcement of Jim Crow.

Brown v. Board of Ed declared Jim Crow laws unconstitutional more than sixty years ago.

I don't see any present day impetus to reestablish whites-only restaurants, or outlaw mixed marriages, or segregate bathrooms and drinking fountains.

What harm are the statues currently serving that demands such drastic censorship?

up
0 users have voted.

The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

Cassiodorus's picture

.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

But the fact that a threat to the institution of slavery convinced those who ran the Southern States to revolt doesn't mean that the Revolutionary War was "fought to preserve slavery." What about the industrial North? They had their own reasons to revolt.

...to an extent.
But the same is also true about the Civil War. There were multiple reasons.

Which is why I led off this essay with my personal story.

The various complexities of events as large as these wars is what makes them interesting.

That being said, if you wanted to boil either of these wars down to a single motivation, it could be done. But in doing so you would have to bleach all the character out of the history.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gjohnsit That being said, if you wanted to boil either of these wars down to a single motivation, it could be done. But in doing so you would have to bleach all the character out of the history.

And that is kind of my point.

Eliminating complexities to make a simpler story might occasionally have its place, but it's a dicey thing to do and often ends up having bad effects. I don't mean that complicating things when they are simple is good. Complexity ain't good in itself. But accuracy, I think, is.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gjohnsit By the way, I agree about the Civil War. Of course there were multiple reasons. One of the few things Southerners usually say about that war that is true, I think, is that the North did not engage in the war because of slavery. Not primarily because of slavery, is how I would put it, because they too are simplifying things. But they are not far from right on that point.

Honey, all those rich white bankers and factory owners are breaking their hearts over the sufferings of the slaves, so they've decided to raise an army!

Uh-huh.

I'm sure there were some of the rank-and-file, and possibly even some of the officers, who were abolitionists or at least gave a shit, but when it comes to the power brokers? Uh, I don't think so. Check my rant on the timing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

... I'd like to say it's a moral imperative to defend human rights, which it used to be, but that concept is basically dead now even with people who are trying hard not to get murdered by racists. If that weren't the case, nobody would talk about white people's freedom to walk to the store without being shot in the head by a cop as a "white privilege." If not getting arbitrarily murdered constitutes a privilege--rather than a right--then the concept of basic human rights is dead. ...

Actually, when that aspect of 'White privilege' suddenly appeared, I rather thought that this looked like propaganda intended to incrementally move the perception of 'not being shot by police for being there at all' into the category of being a 'privilege not a right' within the public consciousness. And I still believe this, even more strongly now, in view of all that's been occurring/that I've learnt since, specifically including the 'legalization' of government propaganda and of the lawless kidnapping and 'disappearing' of citizens at whim under Obama.

If not being randomly murdered/forever-kidnapped and held incognito until death by police/spy agencies is seen as merely having your 'special privileges' withdrawn, rather than having basic human rights - also Constitutionally guaranteed throughout the US, albeit in the face of a promoted Constitution Convention for a rewrite by corporate political representatives - fatally abused, where's the source, never mind the 'legal' support for, citizen outrage, following (Billionaire) Simon Says corporate-determined domestic law within a corporate/billionaire-selected Justice Department/Supreme Court system, never mind off-shored domestic corporate/billionaire-imposed law?

If the people cannot be conned/brainwashed into passively accepting ever-increasing levels of injustice and misery, what happens to the global conquest plans of those self-selected 'elites' pretending that they're fit and entitled to rule the world - by force - only because they've managed to drain so very much of the world's wealth and resources from other people and the world they're ever more rapidly destroying out of pathological greed?

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

detroitmechworks's picture

@Ellen North Unless enjoyed by one and all... Waaait a second...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8EMx7Y16Vo]

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@Ellen North

If not being randomly murdered/forever-kidnapped and held incognito until death by police/spy agencies is seen as merely having your 'special privileges' withdrawn, rather than having basic human rights - also Constitutionally guaranteed throughout the US, albeit in the face of a promoted Constitution Convention for a rewrite by corporate political representatives - fatally abused, where's the source, never mind the 'legal' support for, citizen outrage, following (Billionaire) Simon Says corporate-determined domestic law within a corporate/billionaire-selected Justice Department/Supreme Court system, never mind off-shored domestic corporate/billionaire-imposed law?

If the people cannot be conned/brainwashed into passively accepting ever-increasing levels of injustice and misery, what happens to the global conquest plans of those self-selected 'elites' pretending that they're fit and entitled to rule the world - by force - only because they've managed to drain so very much of the world's wealth and resources from other people and the world they're ever more rapidly destroying out of pathological greed?

Indeed. I tend to agree.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Ellen North Actually, when that aspect of 'White privilege' suddenly appeared, I rather thought that this looked like propaganda intended to incrementally move the perception of 'not being shot by police for being there at all' into the category of being a 'privilege not a right' within the public consciousness.

And I think you were absolutely right.

Once or twice I tried to have that discussion with someone on Daily Kos or elsewhere. Those discussions never went well.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
Good post. Concerning the reductive, simplification, I interpreted gjohnsit's post, not as a simplistic attempt to reduce the Revolutionary War to another cause, but as an example of how the forces that have reduced the Civil War 'cause' have been used to obfuscate the multitude of causes for both of the wars...on purpose, for an agenda.

The Revolution, through repeated propaganda = fight for freedom
The Civil, through repeated propaganda = fight for freedom from slavery

Neither is entirely true, and in fact, based on evidence, I would contend that the 'accepted' truth of these two wars that we have learned in school/tradition, is actually ascribed to what is actually a lesser reason/causes than what they really were because that was a desire of those systems that seek to shape our perceptions.

It doesn't help that the whole thing looks like a macabre puppet show to me, with the wealthy white establishment at the very least reaping rich benefits from these events and the reductionist politics which arises from them, if not actively engaging in manipulation.

Precisely. Fighting over statues is pointless and achieves nothing; it's like putting makeup on a bleeding wound, presuming that will contribute, or be some sort of 'step' toward a meaningful 'fix' of the problem. It does nothing.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@ChezJfrey Yeah, I thought maybe that was what gjohnsit was getting at, but I wanted to confront that issue head-on, because, as I said, it is freaking me out a little.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

if you're going to say this:

There is no such thing as a good slaveowner, but Washington was a thousand times worse than Lee by any measure.

I'm going to need more links.

Quantitatively 1000X?

With other references on other sites I've read in the last week alone, there are more horrific stories on Lee you apparently aren't aware of?

I'm not sure of the goal here. Thanks.

up
0 users have voted.

@peachcreek here read this from Ta-Nahesi Coates.

There is a lot there, but the bottom line for this discussion is in section V.

The consequences of 250 years of enslavement, of war upon black families and black people, were profound. Like homeownership today, slave ownership was aspirational, attracting not just those who owned slaves but those who wished to. Much as homeowners today might discuss the addition of a patio or the painting of a living room, slaveholders traded tips on the best methods for breeding workers, exacting labor, and doling out punishment. Just as a homeowner today might subscribe to a magazine like This Old House, slaveholders had journals such as De Bow’s Review, which recommended the best practices for wringing profits from slaves.

His point here, I think, is that many say , "my family never owned slaves."
As an excuse.
But it was, like homeownership today, a central part of the economic system.
Your, and my, relatives might not have owned slaves.
But, like owning a home today...They likely wanted to.

up
0 users have voted.
Wink's picture

@peachcreek
found our way here after the War, some of us not until the 20th century. Not that that's anything, but it would be interesting to see how many of the 320 million can trace their family back to before the Civil War. Half? More? My great grandfather got here from Canada at the turn of the 20th century bringing my grandfather in tow. Neither one got their U.S. citizenship. While Slavery was a Yuuge chunk of this country's history, it was less than a hundred years after 1776. How many whites can trace their family back to the South prior to 1865. Many, I'm sure. But more than half of 320 million? I suspect most of us (whites) have zero connection to slavery other than what it's done to the country.

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Wink

(whites) have zero connection to slavery other than what it's done to the country.

Whites have zero connection to this land, actually. This is a recent genocide nation.

Whites are indigenous to Europe, their natural home where they evolved their unique characteristics. There, they would walk on their ancestor's bones. To this place, they were not invited. They are not part of the land.

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
boriscleto's picture

@Pluto's Republic We all emigrated from there...

up
0 users have voted.

" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

Pluto's Republic's picture

@boriscleto

Finder's Keepers Losers Weepers.

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Wink Actually, that's true.
My people didn't get here until after the Cuban revolution (which sadly was more like Cuba getting taken from Spain by the United States than anything else. I'm glad they finally threw off those chains in the 50s. And no, that doesn't mean I agree with everything Castro ever did.)

I guess the idea is that the culture obviously didn't throw off the legacy of slavery, economically, legally, or politically. And perhaps that's because the North's heart wasn't really in it. As I've said elsewhere, Lincoln gets a lot of credit for the Emancipation Proclamation, but the fact that he didn't make it the day after Fort Sumter fell, but waited until December 1863, pretty much shows he wasn't deeply disturbed by the sufferings of the slaves. Of course, he also got shot, and we don't know what would have happened had he remained alive during Reconstruction. It would be nice to think that he would have at least tried to change the status of Black people to that of full citizens, but my guess is no.

Anyway, it happened as it did, and so the legacy of slavery and institutionalized racism continued, and continued, and continued. So I guess that's why our families are also caught up in the blame, because we moved to a country that had such a living legacy of horrors. Stupid us. My great-grandfather should have gone to Mexico.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

dervish's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal by the 13th amendment, not the EP. The EP wasn't much more than an executive order of dubious bearing. The EP didn't free any slaves in friendly territory, including Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and DC itself.

up
0 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@dervish

The EP didn't free any slaves in friendly territory, including Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and DC itself.

Oh, hell. I didn't even know that. FFS.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Anja Geitz's picture

@peachcreek

Slaves as a means to economic prosperity is justfiably repugnant to Mr. Coates, as an argument for condemnation, doesn't that fall into "thought crimes"?

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Anja Geitz It strikes me as weird, if nothing else. I'm guessing next everybody who wasn't an abolitionist will be condemned. Then all the abolitionists who didn't go far enough, or the abolitionists who chose a strategy that had racist aspects.

The idea of Liberia, for instance, while it was better than many ideas the white owners of this society had, had a lot of racist origins and has come under serious criticism:

[Free black people's] progress was met with hostility as many whites were not used to sharing space with blacks in a context outside of chattel slavery. Many did not believe that free Africans had a place in America and thought the very existence of free blacks undermined the system of slavery and encouraged slaves to revolt.[2] In the North, whites feared that they would lose jobs to free African Americans, while other whites did not like the idea of blacks integrating with whites, but such sentiment was not exclusive to northerners. In Virginia, for example, one proponent of the Colonization movement, Solomon Parker of Hampshire County, was quoted as having said: “I am not willing that the Man or any of my Blacks shall ever be freed to remain in the United States.... Am opposed to slavery and also opposed to freeing blacks to stay in our Country and do sincerely hope that the time is approaching when our Land shall be rid of them."[3] Riots swept the nation in waves, usually in urban areas where there had been recent migration of blacks from the South. During the height of these riots in 1819, there were 25 recorded riots, with many killed and injured.[4] The back-to-Africa movement was seen as the solution to these problems by both groups, but more so with the white population than the blacks. Blacks often viewed the project with suspicion, especially among the middle-class, and worried that the Colonization movement was a ploy to deport freed African-Americans to keep them from making efforts against slavery.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Anja Geitz's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Lincoln called on black scholars to discuss sending slaves from the border states to Liberia if their owners agreed to sell them to the U.S. government. So, I guess by that rationale, we could put the Great Emancipator on that list too. Complexity does seem to put a wrinkle in the simplest of arguments, doesn't it?

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal anyone, not out here at least. But in my humble opinion, to say that these statues and the REASONS they were put there, have nothing to do with the current problems facing us today for poor blacks and poor whites is kind of naïve. It all effects us, the legacy of slavery made this country economically what it is today just as capitalism has. And the legacy of slavery provides a nice pretext, if you will, for discrimination against anyone who isn't wealthy enough to take care of themselves. Prison labor is basically slavery, and I think we can draw a nice parallel from slavery to debt peonage and wages that aren't enough to live on while we tell those making those wages that they have "enough" as far as our ownership class is concerned.

And just as those statues did, that attitude does indeed reinforce just who owns all of us, and that was and IS the entire point - don't fight us, we have full control and you know it. And if you forget that, why we'll send you a message to that effect every single day and all you gotta do is walk down the street to see it. And if we don't put up a monument to it, why you'll see it on your TV every single night, or read it in your newspaper, and most assuredly it will be taught and drilled into your head in school too, and we'll even subtly reinforce that in every movie you watch, every commercial you see and you will know, you have NO power to change that, period, be you black OR white. That is the intent, IMHO.

up
0 users have voted.

Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

@lizzyh7

Applauds loudly.

The roots of 'now' within America are continuous from 'then' in those who believe they can both drain to a husk and/or buy/steal anything or anyone and whose families have often stolen the great wealth and power they hold, but which can never be 'enough'. That's the pathology of the Psychopaths That Be and their lackeys, propagandized into many victimized Americans supportive of this evil and in turn programed to empower TPTB by victimizing each other and voting against their own interests to harm 'the other' as well, for corporate representatives and the pathological corporate cultural 'ideals' of 'might makes right' and 'dog eats dog'. And which must be eradicated from policy and politics, encroaching root and branch.

Nothing can grow forever without destroying the environment on which it depends.

Brings this to mind...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuhrSRfOK_Y

GOLD GUNS GIRLS- METRIC - LYRICS!

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Anja Geitz's picture

@lizzyh7

of condeming our ancestors of "thought crimes" it was from this statement written in the comments section of this essay. Perhaps accusing is a better word? Or maybe you interpreted peachcreek's words differently?

Your, and my, relatives might not have owned slaves.
But, like owning a home today...They likely wanted to.

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@lizzyh7 Then take 'em down. I think it's tactically stupid and benefits the far right (for recruitment purposes) and the rich white elites (for distraction purposes) a lot more than it does anybody Black, but I don't actually care if Jefferson Davis' ugly mug is in town squares across the country or not. My objection, which I've probably repeated way too much, is that it increases risk levels for a very small gain.

As for condemnation, I didn't mean anybody here. Obviously, the movement that wants the statues down is condemning the Confederates for their immorality. This has now been extended to condemning Washington, Jefferson, and all the others who were slaveowners. That was all I was referring to--not the behavior of anybody on here. As I said in an essay recently, I'm proud of C99. All of us, no matter what our views on this. We have stayed sane and civil in a whirlwind.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Pages