Post #342,422
5/8/11 2:58:09 PM
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'The foolishness of Civil War reenactors'
http://www.salon.com...ennial/index.html
My sentiments too..
[. . .]
Perhaps the impossibility of doing justice to this soldierÂs feelings is precisely why Congress has repeatedly refused to authorize a national commission for the commemoration of the sesquicentennial. More likely, the partisanship that has created deadlock in Congress over almost everything else is the real political reason behind the lack of a federal commission, but without an agency to oversee the anniversary, the whole observance already seems to have fizzled. Of course, Congress is not about to tackle tough issues, and any official commemoration of the Civil War would only emphasize how hypocritical, how morally (and financially) bankrupt, our republic has become in the New Gilded Age of the 21st century. The Civil War, in other words, is too difficult for Congress to manage. ItÂs too messy. It involves taking stock of who we are and where we have come from. It means facing up to hard truths and unkept promises. So Congress, in typical fashion, has ducked the sesquicentennial.
If so, itÂs not entirely without cause -- beyond, that is, the nervous fear of confronting hard historical truths. The Civil War Centennial 50 years ago was a notable disaster. The national commissions created by Congress suffered from mismanagement in its early days, until several prominent historians stepped in and saved it from self-immolation, but meanwhile the civil rights movement made the commemoration of Civil War battles look and sound profoundly hollow. One hundred years had passed since the war had been fought, presumably granting full civil rights to African-Americans and ensuring those rights in the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments; and yet, blacks were still fighting to secure those rights and yearning to be treated with the dignity they deserved as Americans and as human beings. As African-Americans pushed their civil rights movement forward in the '60s, they were vehemently opposed by states rights segregationists who resurrected the Confederate battle flag as a symbol of white supremacy. As Robert J. Cook, who has written a history of the centennial that should give all Americans pause as they stumble their way into the sesquicentennial, insightfully concludes: "If the Civil War centennial tells us anything, it is that seemingly entrenched historical memories are not always a match for the onrush of time." Regrettably, as minorities continue to struggle for equality in our land of the free and the home of the brave, the lost cause of the Confederacy continues to dominate public conceptions of what the Civil War means to us today. Moonlight and magnolias define the essence of the Civil War for most Americans. And public celebrations dreamily embrace the romance of a war that should, by all rights, repel us and horrify us and send shivers of fright down our spines. The commemoration of the sesquicentennial deserves to be more funereal than mirthful, more disconsolate than cheery.
[. . .]
Yeah, I Remember Bull Connor et alia, the smirking/screaming mobs, the countless close-ups of screwed-up Hateful/vicious faces ... of those spitting on a black child attempting to enter a White-trash school
AND ... tiny fingers-crossed ... remain alive for the day.
100 Years of perpetually self-congratulatory jingoist Muricans ... later.
Celebrating our traditional, smugly offensive hypocrisy in all matters (that Matter to any 'decent' society) ... just DOESN'T get better in the reformulating/glossing-over of fanciful War-Is-Glorious BS du any jour.
But *our* unCivil War surely ranks amidst the bloodiest internecine struggles ever multiply-chronicled Yet Unsettled to this day, as we slouch ever nearer to Banana Republic Perpetual-war corporate [bankrupt] Militocracy.
Let it DIE. ..finally.
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Post #342,439
5/9/11 11:18:50 AM
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The Victors always get to write the history books.
When all the uproar ignited over Virginia's "Confederate History Month", I began to re-examine my family roots. In the 1990's, my maternal grandfather and a cousin visited the graveyard behind a church my ancestors had started. There was a tombstone there of my grandfather's great grandfather. As he walked by that tombstone, he stopped briefly and said to my cousin, almost as an aside, "That's Solomon. He was with Lee at Appomattox." That was the first anyone had heard of any of our family being in the Confederate Army. My cousin and I then sought whatever records were available and it turns out that Solomon served as a private with the storied 26th Regiment of North Carolina. He was one of 9 survivors in Company I at the end of the war and was surrendered to Grant by Lee. I have an image of his POW/Surrender card, a handful of muster roles, and some documentation that he filled out for his disability of being shot twice along with his widow's document concerning a pension. In both those cases, judges signed that Solomon enlisted in April of 1862. Which, of course, would mean that Solomon was not only with Lee at Appomattox, but somehow survived Gettysburg.
Of more than 2,000 individuals who served in the 26th, fewer than 140 survived the war. Solomon didn't marry or have children until after the war, so that makes the existence of me truly remarkable. And that information was almost completely lost. Lost, too, would have been the fact that Solomon's entire net worth was never greater than $500.00. Meaning, of course, that he could never have owned a slave - unlike General Grant and his wife, Solomon simply could not have afforded one. And given the region in which he lived, it's unlikely that until he was in the Confederate Army he'd ever met anyone who owned a slave.
I don't think you need an advanced degree in history (or anything else for that matter) to recognize that, at the very least, Solomon Keller was incapable of fighting to preserve slavery. He simply didn't have a dog in that fight. So what motivated him? History is not even concerned with that question. Moreover, if you pause to ask that question, you are immediately assailed as a closet Klansman. But there were many, many times more Solomons than there were slave owners fighting for the South. We know very little about these foot soldiers. I haven't even been able to locate a photograph of my Confederate ancestor, for example.
There are unpleasant little anecdotes that defy the popular "Civil War fought over Slavery" mantra we've all had drilled into our heads. Like Grant's wife not freeing her slaves until the Constitution was changed, and the unquestionable fact that the South had a Constitutional right to the return, upon demand, of their escaped slaves. No one today would advocate for slavery. But to make the claim that the War of Northern Aggression was fought over the issue of slavery is as simplistic as it is dishonest.
Cheers,
Mikem
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Post #342,455
5/9/11 4:20:49 PM
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So you've finally decided to smoke dope, huh?
"to make the claim that the War of Northern Aggression was fought over the issue of slavery is as simplistic as it is dishonest." And what evidence is marshaled in support of this provocative assertion? Why, Great-great-great Grandfather Solomon owned no slaves! I call that a slam-dunk. Somebody shoulda told this stupid git: he new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutionsÂAfrican slavery as it exists among usÂthe proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon itÂwhen the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."
Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. —Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the CSA, 21 March 1861
Jefferson Davis piously and disingenuously demurred: "We are not fighting for slavery; we are fighting for independence, and that or extermination we will have." It's too fucking bad the wicked northern aggressors didn't oblige him: instead, the reeking fever swamp of the former Confederacy has been poisoning our politics for a hundred and fifty years.
"War of Northern Aggression" my arse.
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Post #342,457
5/9/11 5:35:30 PM
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naw, he gets it
all of the wealth in the South was tired up in black people, demanding that all of this paper wealth be destroyed without recompense is what the fighting was about.
Lets just say we want to free the t-bills. So all t-bills are free and can no longer be traded for cash, what would that do to the country? That is what the north was trying to do to the south because they wanted all of their stuff, land property and slaves freed so they wouldnt be responsible for feeding them
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 55 years. meep
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Post #342,465
5/9/11 8:33:26 PM
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What Mississippi Said
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
http://americancivil..._mississippi.html
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow
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Post #342,479
5/10/11 7:27:55 AM
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so why did the valiant yankees wait
until 1865 to free the northern slaves if the war was to free the slaves? Even then the yankees bitched like the little whores they were
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 55 years. meep
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Post #342,546
5/12/11 8:51:07 AM
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It was only about slavery on one side
The Union was fighting to keep control of the Southern states. The Confederacy was fighting to keep the slaves.
---------------------------------------
I think it's perfectly clear we're in the wrong band.
(Tori Amos)
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Post #342,466
5/9/11 8:37:07 PM
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What Georgia Said
The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States. The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity.
http://americancivil...uses_georgia.html
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow
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Post #342,467
5/9/11 8:41:01 PM
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Constitution of the Confederate States of America
just a few of the significant clauses:
(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
[...]
Section 2. (I) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
[...]
(3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
http://americancivil...constitution.html
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow
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Post #342,483
5/10/11 9:15:00 AM
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What North Carolina and the Constitution said.
North Carolina's Succession Ordinance in its entirety.
AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of North Carolina and the other States united with her, under the compact of government entitled "The Constitution of the United States."
We, the people of the State of North Carolina in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by the State of North Carolina in the convention of 1789, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly ratifying and adopting amendments to the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and abrogated.
We do further declare and ordain, That the union now subsisting between the State of North Carolina and the other States, under the title of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of North Carolina is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.
Done in convention at the city of Raleigh, this the 20th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1861, and in the eighty-fifth year of the independence of said State.
http://www.civil-war...ces_secession.asp
Yeah, they're really ranting about slavery there, aren't they? What's that? Oh, NO MENTION of slavery at all. And, North Carolina voted against secession. It took Lincoln calling up volunteers to suppress the insurrection in South Carolina (read: go kill your cousins for me) for North Carolina to pass that ordinance.
But what did the Constitution say? Article 4, Section 2, clause 3.
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
http://press-pubs.uc.../tocs/a4_2_3.html
Was that happening? Ever heard of the Underground Railroad? What was the Constitution considered at that point in history? A contract between the States. What happens to a contract when one party violates the conditions of it? Null and void?
This war, like all others, was about money, territory and power.
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Post #342,507
5/10/11 7:30:07 PM
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So if North Carolina didn't mention slavery
in its Succession Ordinance, does that invalidate the other states that did? And I already posted just a few parts of the constitution of the confederacy where they explicitly state that slavery does and will continue to exist.
I know all about the Underground Railroad, having minored in American history while at college with my focus on early America.
This war, like all others, was about money, territory and power.
and "states' rights" = the right to have slaves.
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow
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Post #342,516
5/11/11 8:09:46 AM
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what was your grade?
slaves=money and the north wanted to free the money without cost.If it was all about the slaves why were the slaves in the north not freed until 1865? The war started in 1861 and the north freed all the slaves in the south in 1863 (how the fuck does that work?)but kept their own slaves in bondage.
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 55 years. meep
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Post #342,521
5/11/11 9:47:42 AM
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Hmmm...
http://blackhistory....ilWarTimeline.htm
[...]
April 1861 - Unarmed resupply ships approach Fort Sumter and are fired upon by South Carolina forces. President Lincoln calls for Union volunteers and the Civil War begins. Four more states, from the Upper South, leave the Union in April and May.
May 1861 - Union General Benjamin Butler refuses to comply with the Fugitive Slave Law, and labels the runaway slaves crossing Union lines as "contraband of war" (i.e., seized property). Congress has yet to enact a policy on the issue.
August 1861 - Congress passes a law which declares that runaway or captured slaves can not be returned to their masters if they are used by their masters for military purposes.
September 1861 - Lincoln overturns an emancipation order for Missouri issued by General John C. Frémont.
December 1861 - Lincoln urges the border states (slaves states still in the Union) to voluntarily emancipate their slaves.
March 1862 - Lincoln proposes a formal plan of gradual, compensated emancipation. Congress passes a resolution in favor of his plan, but none of the border states accept it.
Congress prohibits, under threat of court-martial, the return of all slaves to their masters.
April 1862 - Congress abolishes slavery in the District of Columbia, with financial compensation to former slaveowners.
June 1862 - Congress bans slavery in the territories, without compensation to former slaveowners.
[...]
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #342,522
5/11/11 10:59:20 AM
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emancipation proclaimation was in what year?
and what year was slavery banned in northern states, not territories 1865 I believe.
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 55 years. meep
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Post #342,524
5/11/11 12:48:36 PM
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It's in the linky.
http://blackhistory....ilWarTimeline.htm
July 1862 - Congress authorizes the president to enlist black military recruits, but Lincoln does not call for a general mobilization of blacks.
President Lincoln informs his cabinet that he plans to issue an emancipation proclamation. Secretary of State William Henry Seward convinces him to wait until after a major Union victory.
September 1862 - Union forces repel Confederate General Robert E. LeeÂs invasion of the North at Antietam, Maryland. Lee retreats back to Virginia.
Following the desired Union victory at Antietam, Lincoln announces the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. If the Confederacy does not surrender by January 1, 1863, the president will free all the slaves in Confederate territory. If the Confederate states do surrender, then their slaves will not be freed.
January 1, 1863 - The Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect. All the slaves in Confederate territory are declared free. The policy does not apply to the border states or to Southern territory held by the Union before January 1. Henceforth, as Union troops advance across the South, thousands of slaves are freed. The Emancipation Proclamation also reaffirms the presidentÂs authority to enlist black servicemen, and initiates an effort to organize all-black regiments. Nearly 200,000 black men will serve as Union soldiers, sailors, or laborers.
March 1863 - Congress passes the Enrollment Act, creating a military draft. (The Confederacy had resorted to a draft in April 1862.)
Summer 1863 - In response to implementation of the military draft, bloody riots erupt in cities across the North. The worst occurs in New York City, where mobs demolish draft offices, lynch several blacks, and destroy large sections of the city.
July 3-5, 1863 - Confederate General LeeÂs second invasion of the North is checked by Union troops at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Lee once again retreats to Virginia. Confederate forces surrender to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Vicksburg. The Union now controls the Mississippi River, geographically dividing the Confederacy. The dual victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg are considered a major turning point in the war.
June 1864 - Congress repeals the Fugitive Slave Law.
November 1864 - Lincoln wins reelection against the Democratic presidential nominee, Union General George B. McClellan.
January 1865 - Congress passes the proposed 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bans slavery in the entire United States.
April 1865 - Lincoln is assassinated, and Vice President Andrew Johnson succeeds to the presidency.
The Civil War ends with Confederate General Robert E. LeeÂs surrender to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia.
December 1865 - The requisite number of states ratify the 13th Amendment, and it becomes part of the Constitution.
I posted the previous comment to indicate that compensation was offered to slave owners, at least in some cases. The "War of Northern Aggression" wasn't about impoverishing the South.
Freedom for the slaves came in stages depending on various things, as indicated above.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #342,525
5/11/11 12:53:35 PM
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if its all about the slaves
they would have freed their own prior to 1865 after the war ended
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 55 years. meep
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Post #342,526
5/11/11 1:38:22 PM
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Um, for the Conferderates it was all about Slavery. HTH.
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Post #342,533
5/11/11 8:08:44 PM
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so it wasnt about slavery for the north, thank you
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 55 years. meep
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Post #342,534
5/11/11 8:12:00 PM
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The important word is "all". HTH.
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Post #342,539
5/11/11 10:43:03 PM
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You misunderstand boxley, A S
There is no center to address. He has arrived at a kind of zenlike state, all koan all the time—or to switch hemispheres, a kind of platonic ideal of contrarianism. No countervailing argument can touch him: he will blithely contradict.
I would despise marlowe for this, but box, I am becoming convinced, is an artiste.
http://www.youtube.c...tch?v=teMlv3ripSM
cordially,
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Post #342,540
5/11/11 10:50:39 PM
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:-) Ja, he's one of a kind. ;-)
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Post #342,544
5/12/11 7:33:05 AM
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cow or bull?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 55 years. meep
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Post #342,559
5/12/11 8:10:51 PM
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Who ever said it wasn't?
President Lincoln made it pretty clear that it was all about keeping the country in one piece and about eliminating slavery also. That, to the best of my knowledge, has never been in dispute.
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow
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Post #342,989
5/24/11 2:40:59 PM
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Swing and a miss.
I think you're overplaying that "eliminating slavery also" stuff. But, you're entitled. You won the war, so you get to rewrite history. But, what did old Abe say himself?
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
A. Lincoln, Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862.
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Post #342,477
5/10/11 3:40:53 AM
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Current version
That's like saying the TEA party can't be about tax breaks because the vast majority of them will never personally meet (seeing The Donald on a podium in the distance or on a big screen don't count) anyone in a bracket to benefit (a $200 advance on next year's refund don't count neither) from the proposed freedoms.
It's about supporting the system, not about personal benefit. Your Solomon may well have been all about the system, the way of life, without ever actually meeting a slave owner, just as a TEA partyer might be all about "not punishing success" or "what if Joe The Plumber (OK, unlicensed Plumber's Helper) makes $250K" even though they will probably never meet anyone (damned few flesh-and-blood persons qualify) who will benefit from Republican tax "reforms".
The irony is that the war, from the Northern perspective, was explicitly NOT about ending slavery, while all from the Southern perspective, all the arguments boiled down to preserving slavery. The Southern view was all about State's Rights, but the only right they cared about was the right to own slaves. The Northern perspective was about the idea that the United States is a nation, not a collection of little nations. Neither side was really about the idea that human dignity does not derive from the ability to sunburn easily.
So yeah, the North wasn't really right, but the South was really, really wrong.
Which is not to say that Solomon was a bad guy.
I just found my dead daughter's letters to her unborn (as of 9/11/2001) child. Kid is a healthy little boy now, with a new Daddy and a new Mommy and a Grandpa Mike who misses him so much he's almost crying right now. But the letters refer to Daddy (AKA "sperm donor" AKA "rapist" AKA Adam) who went to fight Al-Qaeda in order to pay for college and make a better life for the little guy.
Adam was not a bad guy for going to war against Al-Qaeda. He was a bad guy for raping my little girl and abandoning my grandson. But he didn't go to war for Christianity or democracy or America. He went to war to pay for college.
My guess is that Solomon went to war mostly to avoid getting shot by a recruiter. Maybe he colored that with defending the rights of the States, or the Southern Way Of Life (of which slavery is an integral part even if he ain't the owner). But it was probably about not getting shot right now, and impressing the girls with a uniform, and making a few Confederate dollars, and being a patriot and a Man.
---------------------------------------
I think it's perfectly clear we're in the wrong band.
(Tori Amos)
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Post #342,485
5/10/11 9:41:45 AM
5/10/11 9:45:08 AM
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You and I are very close in our assessments.
The Southern view was all about State's Rights, but the only right they cared about was the right to own slaves.
I agree with that in this sense: the South's economic power was entirely wrapped up in free labor. Lose that, they reasoned, and they lost their economic edge. The roughly 1 in 5 Southerners who owned slaves doubtless found plenty of useful idiots, like my ancestor, who may have been sympathetic to a call to defend his state's sovereignty that they could use to preserve their economic power.
I am truly sorry for bringing to mind painful things for you. Clearly Adam's motivation for enlisting had nothing to do with democracy or Christianity. But neither did Pat Tillman's. There are, no doubt, true believers in our military that are there fighting for motivations that don't have anything to do with the reasons the elite want the war fought. In other words, ascribing to all of them a single motivation for fighting - let alone the powerful's reasons - is overly simplistic. That's the point I was trying to make when I said that claiming the war was fought over slavery was overly simplistic.
[Edit: tpyo]
Edited by mmoffitt
May 10, 2011, 09:45:08 AM EDT
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Post #342,510
5/10/11 10:15:24 PM
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In that vein,
wasn't it mainly a tribal thing all around? (..the biped equivalent of herd instinct.)
Or, in keeping with Smiley (Smiley's People, with Alec Guinness) -- in trying to figure out why certain people became traitors (or traitor-sleuths??)
He said.. ... "There are reasons, and then there are ... Reasons."
Same, I guess re. ever signing-up to kill Other homo-saps for whole basketsfull of 'reasons' and always Damn Few Reasons
-- the former readily parsed into non-sense by anyone not smoking dope/waving flags at the time.
Wanna get an edja-Kay'shun in Murica / get that MBA corner office ticket?
Spin that AK-47 Wheel-of-Fortune, if you're not in the top 10% (where all the plundered Net Worth has gone.)
(You also get Free Meds for a while -- something a 20 yo. couldn't afford elsewhere -- except by not needing any white-coated ones for a few decades, if lucky/lucky.)
(Guess that's one r/Reason for my preference for cats over many homo-saps, but-not-all:
felines are the pukka Symbol for the concept, oxymoron: herding cats. Not herdable == Reason enough.)
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Post #342,545
5/12/11 8:43:06 AM
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Don't worry about my painful things
There is no way to predict what will set me off.
And in this case it wasn't what you wrote, it was finding Alice's diary she was keeping for her child. The 9/11 page was particularly rough.
---------------------------------------
I think it's perfectly clear we're in the wrong band.
(Tori Amos)
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Post #343,065
5/26/11 8:28:32 PM
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one economic viewpoint
"Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from."
-- E.L. Doctorow
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Post #343,078
5/27/11 10:50:29 AM
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Besides which ...
For a seller, the price to sell one of your 500 slaves would not be the same as the price to sell one of your last 10 slaves.
--
Drew
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