Tag: history

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The continuing debate regarding slavery and the Civil war is baffling to me. There is this faux confusion about why slavery is such a big deal. A good example of this odious opinion can be found in Jason L. Riley’s post in the City Journal. He makes two contentions regarding slavery in USA.

The first is that slavery was pervasive all over the world so why should the American version be seen as evil while every other country gets off the hook. Riley ignores the racist defense of slavery which justified the enslavement of Blacks but also persisted long after the Civil War ended. There was big difference between Roman slavery and American slavery. For most other countries who engaged in slavery, the slaves came from the defeated population after the end of wars. It was just bad luck that the losing side became slaves to the winning side.

Americans, on the other hand, and probably because it was a glaring contradiction with American values, justified slavery with the pernicious view that Blacks were racially inferior to Whites and thus their subordination was justified. It is the only way someone can understand why the subordination of Black people continued after the Civil War. White Discrimination, then, limited Black progress for, at least, 100 years following the Civil War and, sadly, even today, some Whites cling to this racist ideology.

Furthermore, particularly for conservatives who liked to sing the praises of American Exceptionalism, saying that everyone is doing it has all the moral weight of a teenager caught with a can of beer. So what if everyone was doing it? The question pertinent to American History is why did some of our forefathers have slaves. It doesn’t really matter that some African Blacks sold other African Blacks into slavery. Yes, it was wrong of them but their history isn’t what we are looking at. We are looking at American History. It was Americans who thought that these African Blacks were the equivalent of cattle and hogs and so there was nothing wrong with making them slaves.

Then there is Riley’s contention that slavery did very little to the advancement of American Capitalism which, OK, maybe but it hardly matters when Southerners, both slave owner and non-slave owner, believed that the continuation of slavery was vital to the economy of the South. They believed it so strongly that they were willing to defend slavery with their lives. They were willing to break the country in two to defend it. They thought their way of life was under attack. The percentage of GNP that slavery brought to pre-Civil War America seems a irrelevant to understanding the actual conflict.

The reason that Riley is confused about American Slavery being such a big deal is that he overlooks racism. The reason that Conservatives won’t look at racism is that it would involve some uncomfortable discoveries. The painful truth is that White people, either actively or passively, treated Black people badly for quite a long period in American History. It is painful to think that great Grandfather and Grandmother weren’t such good people. They had flaws. They really didn’t represent American ideals. On the other hand, it would certainly make such landmark events like the Civil War much more comprehensible to people like Riley if he introduced racism to the conversation. and, after all, isn’t understanding our history what learning is all about.

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Florida continues to rewrite the history of the Civil War. The governor and his cronies want a much more palatable history so that white children don’t have to learn that their ancestors behaved like assholes. As Chauncey DeVega, in the above linked Salon article, noted: “The discomfort of Black and brown children — who watch their communities’ histories, experiences and reality being systematically erased and distorted — was apparently of little concern.”

But never mind, the fragile minds of white children are the concern here. They need to know that their country is great. Period. Any information that might suggest otherwise has to be massaged so that these delicate darlings don’t get the wrong idea about the country.

So the Civil War becomes a little kerfuffle about State’s Rights. The North wanted to force its ways on the South and the South wasn’t having it. Making State’s Rights the issue, as opposed to slavery, drains the Civil War of any meaning.

Florida education wants white children to think that slavery wasn’t so bad. The plantation owners gave the slaves a good profession, and kept them well fed, and housed. The plantation owners and the slaves, in fact, got along fabulously. Besides, slavery was a dying institution and wouldn’t have lasted much longer any way. Got it.

Leaving white children with the mistaken idea that the founding fathers were perfect and the nation was perfect from the beginning with no need to change. But the nation did change — a bloody civil war was fought, the slaves were freed, and the South began a hundred year resistance campaign against blacks which included lynching and legal discrimination.

How does one explain American History without touching on the Civil War and race? More importantly, how does this silence about what happened help anyone – Black, Brown, Red, Yellow or White? The fact is race is an ongoing concern for the American people. The American people’s approach to race has changed over time and this change is important both to note, to discuss and to understand.

How does a student understand Reconstruction without first learning about the Civil War? How does a student understand the Civil Rights Movement without understanding legal discrimination? Yes, these are unpleasant topics because a lot of people behaved badly and their behavior is difficult to understand. But it did happen. It is a part of history.

Children, contrary to popular belief, live in the real world not an imaginary world of lollipops and gum drops. They see confusing and terrible things every day. This is part of their transition to becoming adults. Not all truths are pleasant. Children need to know that. The country started with some grand ideas but some pretty awful ones too. It is important to learn from the awful ones in order to change our present to an even better future.

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Sophia Tesfaye, in Salon, reports that conservatives are trying to recast the Rosa Parks story. In 1956, Parks famously refused to go to the back of the bus which set into motion the Birmingham Bus Boycott. Matt Walsh, conservative podcaster, made a documentary trying to show how this was not just a story about a tired seamstress breaking after a hard day of work when asked to move. No, it is worse, so much worse — Parks was a member of the NAACP and was looking for a way to challenge segregation. The bus incident provided her with an opportunity to do so.

Amazingly, Walsh isn’t giving us any new information. He just seems a little surprised that Parks was a member of the NAACP and how it might have affected her refusal to move. Well, yes, so what? This is stunningly meaningless presentation of the facts. The law was wrong and she was right to refuse. NAACP needed a case to highlight this indignity, Parks provided it.

The problem wasn’t that Parks was an activist, the problem was there was a back of the bus laws in the first place. There would be no need for activists opposing unjust laws if the laws did not exist in the first place. If Parks, based on her experience and the experience of other Blacks, saw a situation and was prepared to act in no way diminishes what she accomplished.

And, if Parks and the NAACP set a trap, then who is to blame for the cops falling into it? The cops had other choices here too. They exacerbated an already tense situation with Parks’ arrest. Who better to act when an opportunity presents itself — an ordinary seamstress after a long day of work or an ordinary seamstress after a long day of work who is also a member of the NAACP. What am I missing here? Is Walsh saying that Blacks should remain disorganized and leaderless?

It is painful to listen to this crap because they are trying to turn history upside down. Walsh is all about undermining Rosa Parks? Who backed the NAACP? Who paid for their resistance? Could there have been Communists involved and, if so, doesn’t that make the fight against segregation wrong? Well, the USA fought along side the Communists in World War II, does this some how diminish the Allies’ victory. Walsh misses the whole point — the segregation laws were unfair and needed to be resisted. Parks admirably used the opportunities and resources available to her. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

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It always irritates me when I read articles like Barton Swaim in the Wall Street Journal (paywall though you can get a free article if you get a log in). Swaim thinks that the adherence to the Protestant Work Ethic is in decline and he pins this decline on Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and every other helpful thing ever done for poor people since then because the poor have no reason to work hard when they can get so much free shit from the government. The USA has just made it too easy for poor people to goof off instead of work.

Those retched poor people are just too God damn powerful and greedy as opposed to those put upon rich people who everybody keeps picking on. Swaim’s thinking is that we need to make the poor more miserable than they already are. They will never understand the value of hard work because they are given too much. His search for a villain in this story stops directly where his prejudices end — the poor.

Where to begin? First, we have to take him at his word that people would rather not work. It is mostly word of mouth drivel about adult men living with their parents, COVID subsidies and Somali refugees. Some of these may be problems but Swaim doesn’t really give much insight on how these unrelated problems have undermined the Protestant Work Ethic or how they are related to Johnson’s War on Poverty. He is flinging them out like a mad ape throwing shit at patrons at a zoo. He is hoping one of them will hit the target. They don’t. Adult men living off their parents, I am afraid to say, are living off their parents and not the government. COVID subsidies are long gone and no longer an issue. Which leaves the Somali refugee scandal which may or may not be a problem (it is still under investigation) but hardly a reason to eliminate a whole system. You wouldn’t call for the end of Corporate Capitalism based on the bad behavior of Bernie Madoff or Enron now would you? Why apply a different standard to government assistance.

Swaim also mythologizes life in pre-War on Poverty America. It was not sweetness and light. It was grinding poverty for most Americans — with estimated poverty rates between 40 to 60 % of the American people. And I am not talking the Great Depression either because even before the Great Depression an awful lot of Americans lived in poverty. It was only after Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal that this rate came down to about 20% in 1960. After Johnson’s War on Poverty, the poverty rate now hovers around 11%. So government services lifted many poor Americans out of poverty.

Next lets look at those patriotic Capitalists who, in order to avoid paying higher American wages, brought to you, thank you very much by unions, fled the country in order to pay lower wages to workers outside the country. These “good” Americans pulled the rug out from under high wage workers in order to make more money with absolutely no concern for how this affected their now out-of-work employees. Nobody, by the way, stopped them. They were free to undermine union workers wages and unions themselves with nary a complaint from anyone.

This left getting a good education which has turned out to be bit of a trap for some. Many took out loans for educations that turned out to have very little benefit in the job market. People came out of college owing a bundle of money with little chance of recouping on their investment. So much for a home and a family.

Now AI is whittling away at the functions in the better jobs so that workers even in medicine, law and engineering are being threatened. What type of jobs does Swaim have to offer these young people with the advent of AI? Even a $15 minimum wage is insufficient to pay the rent in most states. The lowest possible wage can’t provide a meaningful income for survival. Some companies like Walmart and McDonald’s encourage their workers to use government benefits to supplement the low wages they pay their employees.. People actually are working full time jobs while receiving government assistance. Then these same assholes are trying to take away these benefits from full time workers because it discourages them from hard work.

Fuck them. Talking about how government benefits discourages people from fully engaging in the Protestant Work Ethic is just bull shit. People can see their reality. Hard work without a pay off is a meaningless exercise. I am surprised that so many low wage workers are still punching a time clock.

If only the poor worked harder, the world would be a better place. Maybe for the rich but there is little evidence that it would help the poor. The corollary to this rule is that rich people need even more money or else they will stop working so hard. Do you see the problem here? Rich people need more money are they won’t work while poor people need less money are they won’t work. Genius.

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The worst part of Donald Trump’s march through history is that he has gotten exactly what he wanted from us. He talks and we pay attention to him. He can call a press conference and it will be packed with reporters. The whole world is hanging on his every word.

He doesn’t care if people hate him. He doesn’t care if people point out his lies. The point is people are talking about him. HIM. Donald J. Trump. He is impossible to ignore. I tried. Honestly, I did but he is the fucking president of the United States. How do you ignore him? Particularly someone so adroit at enraging people.

The best thing we could have done would have been to ignore him. But no, we paid attention and now we are stuck talking about him. When people talk about this point in history, they will be talking about Donald Trump, the reaction to Trump, and the damage Trump did to global relations. Exactly what he wanted.

Hate him, impeach him, arrest him. It doesn’t matter that he has low poll ratings because we are talking about him. The press will ask him to respond to anything that happens because he knows how to sell papers. The press will relay any of his thoughts no matter how ludicrous and his opponents will respond and on and on we go.

This man with such meager talents won the most powerful position in the world. Voted in by his fellow citizens. Then he managed to use this lofty position, despite all of his stupidity and malice, to force people to pay attention to him. What more could a megalomaniac want? And we fell into his trap — hook, line and sinker.

Now we are stuck talking about him for the rest of history.

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I saw the following posts on Glen Reynolds Instapundit site where I learned that the capture of Maduro is not only a victory for the Trump Administration but also White men. Yes, White men are the only one’s capable of pulling off such competence needed for such a special military operation. No people of color or women involved at all so the only reason it came off without hitch was because White men were in charge of the project and White men performed all of the tasks.

This isn’t the least bit racist either because he is just pointing out the facts. There were only White men involved and the result was military success.

What a crock. There have been lots of successful military operations in the past 6,000 years. Some of them surely involved people of color.

And just in the spirit of balance, I would like to point out the many historical disasters initiated by White men — trench warfare and Viet Nam will suffice as gentle reminders that depending on White men sometimes leads to disaster.

This is, given the divisive nature of the Trump administration and criticism regarding their racial politics, oddly counter productive to what I would think is the goal of such an operation. This was a necessary action conducted for the nation and benefit all Americans. We are all in this together.

But if you are going out of your way to gloat about the performance of just White men than, yeah, great, go White men. The Venezuela Operation is all about White men.

On the other hand, if anything goes wrong later, and surely an undertaking of this size, something will go wrong. We can assign the blame for these mistakes on White men.

Sorry for the photographs. I couldn’t link to the post so I took pictures. If you want to go to Instapundit site and find these posts of January 4 around 5PM.

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I was talking with my brother about the Hitler/Trump comparison and I always end up in the same place. Trump just isn’t Hitler. Not even close. It is an impossible measurement. Hitler is one of the all time champion dictatorial monsters. Valid comparisons to Hitler are Stalin and Mao but Trump falls short in this competition. Way way short.

This doesn’t mean Trump isn’t dangerous, he just fails to match Hitler.

I think the Hitler comparison comes about because Hitler’s rule was so disastrous for the entire world. A lot of people died directly and indirectly during his rampage through history. He is the worst case scenario. Hitler is meant to scare people. But because Trump isn’t nearly as bad as Hitler the comparison fails to accomplish this task and might even be counter productive.

The danger of this comparison is that people will judge the comparison as faulty and dismiss the argument.

The real problem, as my brother pointed out, is that Trump is crossing lines that are intolerable in democracy. He is arresting people and taking over countries with very thin pretexts. He is condemning people to death without trial. He thinks the president can do anything he wants. He is no longer playing by the rules of American democracy so when is it all right for people who disagree with him to stop playing by those rules.

This is a much more difficult proposition and one we need to be very careful about. Political violence is terrible because once it starts, all bets are off. Once the bodies pile up, things get pretty bloody awfully fast. I, personally, would like to avoid that if at all possible. I may be wrong but I still think we aren’t at a point to stop playing by the rules.

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Glen Reynolds, Conservative/Libertarian pundit, had a meltdown about Jacob Savage’s The Lost Generation. Reynolds missed a lot of Savage’s point as did many other conservatives (see my previous post). Indeed Savage says he was an ordinary talent and he holds no grudges against the women and people of color who got the jobs he failed to get. It was bad luck for him that he was born during a time that more aggressive measures to right previous wrongs were being taken. He, unfortunately, didn’t make the cut.

Reynolds thinks that a whole generation was hollowed out because some white men didn’t get the jobs. While personally disappointing to some, Reynolds, in no way, proves the generational disaster he contends occurred. White men didn’t get all the jobs but somebody else did. So how was a whole generation hollowed out because some members of that generation didn’t get the jobs. The jobs were filled. People performed the tasks. TV shows were produced. History 101 taught to students. The only difference is the more of these jobs were done by women and people of color. How is this a disaster?

Reynolds unspoken contention is that the best people aren’t performing the tasks. Does Reynolds mean that when white men aren’t over represented in employment statistics, then the best people aren’t getting the jobs. For example, a piece of data that Reynolds refers to from Savage’s article points to a significant decline in white men presently in jobs in television writing. Yes, there was a significant decline in white males in these jobs but, then, what about the other piece of the data Savage writes about, and Reynolds ignores — the over representation of white males in these positions in the past. He doesn’t seem the least bit bothered that there was a deliberate exclusion of women and people of color from these positions that favored white men.

Also, these jobs are prestige jobs. An awful lot of people are vying for them and an awful lot of people are disappointed when they fail to get them. Even in the good old days when white men were over represented. Even today, an awful lot of women and people of color aren’t getting these prestige jobs. A lot of very talented people have to dust themselves off and find a different path. This has been going on since the founding of the Republic. Not everyone gets their dream job. Why Reynolds thinks this is such a national disaster is unclear. The only thing that Reynolds keeps yammering on about is that a white man didn’t get the job and white men are somehow always the best candidates for the job — even, say, jobs writing about a Black Woman on a television show.

This is a personal disappointment that most people will survive not a societal disaster. Since women and people of color now have a chance to get these jobs, there is even more competition for these coveted jobs. And this is a good thing. We are hearing from people who never had a voice and are now able to express it.

But what about the meritocracy? Give me a fucking break. By all means, lets work for a better process but the world isn’t coming to an end because for a very short time in the history of the country, we are, after all, talking about ten years here, white men have had more trouble getting jobs in the studio and academia. The DEI model is under attack and is likely to be replaced with a different model. Let us hope it is fairer. But it will not be perfect and things like family connections and money will still help people who have these advantages to get jobs that more talented people should get. There is no meritocracy solution that will stop this. So the next time Reynolds cries about the absence of meritocratic values in making decisions, he knows what orifice he can stick his whining ass.

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I can’t believe I find myself in the position of defending Piers Morgan but such is the world we live in that a pompous ass like Morgan has become the voice of reason. Tucker Carlson tried to get Morgan to use the word faggot. Morgan politely declined which didn’t satisfy the feisty Carlson as he fired off a round of faggots. He then wondered why he couldn’t say the N word.

Interestingly Carlson used the N word instead of the actual word. The repercussions for the N word were too much even for him. He knew enough not to say the actual word which also means he knows why he shouldn’t say faggot. Free speech comes with repercussions. He thought he could get away with faggot but knew enough not to gamble on saying the N word. And he has the balls to complain he doesn’t understand. He understands all too well.

When people complain that they can’t use words like faggot or the N word, they are being incredibly disingenuous. They understand the meaning of these words. They are derogatory and hateful words. People use them to hurt people and that’s why most people avoid using them. People know that and choose their words carefully as a way to manage their way through civil discourse.

In the good old days, say 50 years ago, a White man could say the N word without much of price. Thankfully this has changed. The audience for people willing to hear a White man say the N word without repercussions has gotten infinitesimally small. You are free to say it but there will definitely be a price as there should be.

But, why then do Blacks get to use the N word and he can’t. Well, hmm, let me think about that one. Maybe, and I am just guessing here, it might be that for a good portion of American history that whites used the N word as a way of putting Black people down. A White person carries some historical baggage for racism so it becomes important for them to avoid using the N Word to avoid looking racist. Blacks, on the other hand, do not bear this same historical baggage so are better able to get away with using it. Yes, it is unfair but then life is unfair.

The annoying thing about this whole kerfuffle is that Carlson understands perfectly well why he shouldn’t say faggot and the N word. Pressing Morgan to partake in it was a childish attempt to undermine Morgan’s good manners. To Morgan’s credit, he refrained from getting pulled into Carlson’s nonsense. But if it is so darned important for Carlson to say faggot or the N word without social cost, I suggest he attend a KKK meeting, I am pretty certain he could get away with it there.

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I once was talking about reparations for the families of ex-slaves with a woman who finally had enough of me. Now here is the thing I doubt that reparations will be instituted anytime soon. The American public is too tax averse and the subject is too controversial to get anywhere near congressional passage. Even though it is unlikely to happen, there is a pretty reasonable case to be made for giving reparations.

So the woman I was arguing with finally stumped when she asked, “why should I pay for the sins of my father?” I didn’t have an answer at the time but I do now.

This same woman gets all weepy when speaking about all the good America has done. She visited Normandy Beach to see where D Day was fought. She had justifiable pride in those soldiers sacrifice. She believes she benefited enormously from her American heritage. She owed something to the forefathers for the sacrifices they made.

Well, then, doesn’t she also owe something to the victims of her ancestors mistakes. It is terribly easy to claim American heritage when it is doing good. But let’s face it, it didn’t always do good.

My mother’s family were some of the original settlers of my home state of Kansas. Presumably, they took their land from the indigenous people who roamed the plains prior to their arrival. Now I certainly don’t approve of forcing people from their land. On the other hand I have benefited greatly from their actions even though I committed no crime.

Might makes right. The bottom line is that the native population was, through a combination of trickery and force, removed from their land. My ancestors then took advantage of it. If I am proud of what they built and I also need to acknowledge the damage they did to the native population. History cuts both ways.

Getting back to the reparations debate. There is no clear cut dividing line when racism ended. Indeed it lingers on to this day but let’s use the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a dividing line. Before 1964, then, discrimination was legal. What did my ancestors do to prior to 1964 to ensure that Blacks had civil rights. Precious little, I am afraid.

Now these are ancestors that I actually remember not some distant myth of an ancestor. These are grandparents and parents. I am innocent of any crime but my ancestors sat idly by while something terrible was happening.

Which brings me to Trump trying to sanitize slavery by removing a picture of a whipped slave from the National Park system. Trump is concerned that this type of photo gives a negative view of our history and “distorts understanding rather than enrich(es) it.” This is an actual photograph. There is no argument about that. Trump is afraid that people will learn that actual flesh and blood human beings whipped this mans back until it was a mess of scars.

What? Seriously, what? What misunderstanding is Trump worried about? What is gained by removing this photograph? We don’t have to think of our ancestors doing horrible things in order to keep slaves? The problem with wanting to worship our ancestors is that our ancestors were human beings not saints. Sanitizing history doesn’t change it and it actually makes the Civil War more confusing. Why did so many people die to stop slavery when the slave owners were so nice and the slaves so happy?

And this is why reparations are useful. It would be a price that living Americans would pay for the mistakes of their ancestors. It might make, and might is the operative word here, people realizes that at one point in our history we behaved terribly to our fellow human beings and that is important.

Of course, it will never happen but the least we can do now is fight to show the brutality of slavery. A very small price indeed.