BS: slavery, poverty and culture

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 06:52 AM

Why take sides in such an indignant way all this time later? No doubt there was injustice towards white southerners, but does it begin to measure up to the injustice done to black Americans over two hundred years and more, and the damage this has done to your whole history?

Getting angry about the past is pointless. Trying to find ways to undo the way the distortion caused by a republic founded on the acceptance of slavery, and the damage caused in the process of trying lie with that legacy and its consequences - that's what surely matters.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 11:51 PM

OK, I see we've unfortunately got to the irrational anecdotal facts-be-damned foaming at the mouth neo-Confederate confabulate what happened a century ago with current events out-and-out unadulterated bullshit stage of the "discussion".

A little knowledge is verily a dangerous thing.

Bye, Y'all-
Greg

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Amos
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 11:23 PM

CC:

Some excellent points!

The first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, held by Union forces, by the Secesh side.

And it was indeed arguably illegal to secede from the Union, having once subscribed to the Articles f Confederation and the Constitution, I would think. IANAL, of course, but I think there was a lot of debate ontheissue at the time.

I don't know about you but my impression of the CSA itxelf was never demonized; I have always thought highly of Lee and of those who fought for him.

A

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 11:11 PM

Let's set a few things straight here while we're at it. The South seceded the Union. It was not illegal to do so. This makes the CSA at the time of the start of the civil war a soveriegn state in its own right. Yes, the CSA took arms against the Union Army which invaded the CSA at Bull Run in Virginia. I'm not sure I remember who fired the first shot. But if it was the CSA troops then they were well within their rights to defend their "country". We needed less provocation than that to attack Iraq. Also there were attacks by people like John Brown that greatly angered the southerners to beigin with. Brown was not a legal representative of any governmental agency. He was an out and out vigilante bent on doing what he thought was God's Will. Sounds alot like someone else we know.

Two - Lincoln illegally arrested and held for the duration of the war, people identified as sympathizers and gave them no trial whatsoever. Kinda like we're seeing now. The state of Maryland and in paricular the city of Baltimore was placed under martial law for the duration of the war. This is understandable as the Union would hardly want the capital to be surrounded by CSA territory but it was still wrong.

Three - Throughout the war the North siezed and garrisoned troops in private homes owned by citizens of the CSA. This was one of the greatest insults as we had language forbidding this in the constitution.

Four - The destruction wrought by Sherman and his troops was not necessary and resulted in a south that was crippled for years after the war badly lagging behind in industrial development because of the destruction of the railroads and burning of the crops and farmhouses and buildings needed to harvest the next crop if they could get it to grow.

The fact that Gen. Robert E. Lee kept the troops from going guerilla at the end of the war, a situation that we now confront in Iraq shows that the CSA was not the evil demon that we have been lead to believe.

And think about this as well. The Union army was the first to deploy snipers who by many accounts were not used to take out leading officers and such but against common troops in camp far from the lines and not participating in the battle. The former I would consider a necessity of war. The latter I consider cold blooded murder. Today if an Iraqi or Al quaida or Taliban should do so it would be considered terrorism.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 10:20 PM

It's a waste of time, but let me clarify some points that you refer to.

"The Test Oath ...wasn't a test of a willingness to be loyal to the Union ... it was a test to determine who to punish for supporting secession. The result was that the majority of white Texans were disenfranchised causing no little discontent."

Two points. First, nature of the oath is misrepresented in more recent histories both to hide that punishment was being inflicted and to imply that Southerners deserved whatever mild misfortunes they suffered (just like some of you comments) since they were unwilling to take a simple step to become loyals citizens again. That simply wasn't true, it was a catch-22. Second, the imposition of the oath not only disenfranchised men who had been able to vote in elections immediately after the war, it was the first signal that the North intended reverse the conciliatory policy Lincoln put forward and actively punish the South. Say what you will, it was no way to make them love the North.

"Jim Crow had nothing to do with the North's thirst for vengence against the South."

The Jim Crow laws came after the war and the Reconstruction. How could they be the cause of the North's treatment of the South before they were enacted? Were you thinking the North's resentment over the slavery issue itself? Really? For the first couple of years of the war the North insisted the war was not fought over slavery, only to maintain the Union. This was the period of draft riots and Copperheads. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation electrified the nation, but that was well into the war, was meant more to prevent Britain entering the war on the South's side and, as I'm sure you knew only affected slaves in the Southern states, not the Union states that were slavery was still legal. Most of the war, the war had nothing to do with slavery -- unless you say Lincoln is a liar.

"Of course, there wasn't any [hard currency] since most if not all of the specie in the state had gone into the war [snip]... The economy collapsed."

No, the North was only responsible for intentionally imposing policy that they knew would have harsh economic consequences and allow the legal looting of the property of those of the defeated. Coming as it did, as a form of punishment, again you can't expect the Southerners to love the North.

Say what you will about the non-existant "Klan" in Texas, they started to try to control the lawless element the Army did little or nothing to put down. If you're surprised that once the North openly started punishing the South for the war, retaliated against anyone they could reach who symbolized what the North was doing, well, you don't understand what's happening in Palestine or happened in Northern Ireland. They considered themselves freedom fighters, too. Yes, I know there's more to it than that, but that's how they saw themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 10:01 PM

Fir another interseting contemporary perspective, Tony Horwitz's "Confederates in the Attic" is a grusomely deatiled account of just how little progress has been made in the minds of many Southerners toward "getting over it". Unfortuantely, having lived 25 years in Richmond, Va. I am accutely award of these folks feelings...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 09:25 PM

Hullo, Strick-

I'm not mad, I'm not trying to be offensive, I'll do my best not to be pompous or bombastic as I know I can be.

Nor I.

if you'll admit the possibility, just the possibility that Northern accounts written during the Civil Rights movement might, just might, focus on the South's inequities and soft sell the South's grievances against the North.

I've no problem admitting that there's inherent bias in anything written by anyone at any time. Part of the human condition. But I'm suggesting you check some sources that were written both before "the Civil Rights Movement" (By which I assume you mean the late '1950s and 1960's) and since- a LOT of excellent stuff has come out in the last 20 years or so that has not yet made it into popular reference works or text books. Point is to see which way the preponderance of the evidence leads & go with that.

I won't even insist on call what was written long after the fact revisionist history.

Please don't. I wasn't going to get into this, but you brought it up, and it makes my teeth ache. "Revisionist History" is a meaningless redundancy, a bugaboo raised by certain types in an attempt to discredit that with which they don't agree without having to resort to factual discourse. History is necessarily written "after the fact" and all historical writing that's well done is by nature "revisionist", in that it is constantly being revised to incorporate new and/or more complete information, often to lessen prior observed bias & give a better picture of the past. All history is also an 'interpretation' to a greater or lesser degree- the historian doesn't have time travel available as a research tool. So playing the "Revisionist History" card is a ploy and usually an act of desperation. Earns ya no points with me.

The Test Oath ...wasn't a test of a willingness to be loyal to the Union ... it was a test to determine who to punish for supporting secession. The result was that the majority of white Texans were disenfranchised causing no little discontent.

This is going to sound flippant, but I can't help it- what precisely did they expect after taking up arms, attacking the government of the United States, and involving the country in a war that caused more casualties than all U.S. wars before or since?? To be sent to bed without their suppers? Surely these were people of some intelligence who did not expect their actions to have no consequences, and it does their memories no service for them to be infantilized by succeeding generations. One of the more maddening aspects of this whole situation to this day is that a lot of folks are still in denial and refuse to accept any responsibility after more than a century. (Not directed at you personally)

Jim Crow had nothing to do with the North's thirst for vengence against the South.

"Nothing to do with?" I was sort of with you up to this point, but this statement is nonsense. If you think about it a bit, I think you'll agree with me.

Northern accounts talk about the KKK in Texas during the Reconstruction.

"They" may (and I have no idea what accounts you're referring to), but I don't believe I did.

Calling these groups "the Klan" is same as someone in the 50s calling labor activists in the 1880s and 90s communists. Pure demagoguery.

Call 'em by any name you want, but White Supremacist groups were regularly killing Blacks, Republicans (both domestic Texan and Yankee varieties) & "Northern Sympathizers" and "collaborators". This is amply documented. KILLED. LYNCHED. SHOT DOWN IN THE STREET. Not 'treated harshly', not "generally unjust'. Took place before the Federal troops were sent in, took place again once the troops were withdrawn. This occurred throughout the States of the former Confederacy- I don't mean to single Texas out. Also, the Klan of the immediate post-Civil War period was considerably MORE vicious than that of the 1920's, not less.

I see Northern accounts claim that the fact that Texas was producing more cotton after Reconstruction shows it actually had a positive impact on the economy

I can't speak to this point as I have no knowledge, but as you've stated it it does sound like a bogus claim to me.

Of course, there wasn't any [hard currency] since most if not all of the specie in the state had gone into the war [snip]... The economy collapsed.

And the North is somehow responsible for the State of Texas bankrupting itself by prosecuting a war that it chose to join and enthusiastically participated in? I'm confused...

I'm looking forward to another stinging reply with advice on which histories to read.

Well, I hope I've disappointed you at least a little bit.
I don't mean to tell you which histories to read. I suggested you refer to the extensive bibliographies in the two works I mentioned and use them as a resource listing or guide to select for yourself some works of interest. Lot of good material out there. Might just give you a bit of a different perspective.

Best, Greg

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 07:35 PM

Sorry, my link may look redundant, but it's to a short biography of Wilberforce.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 07:20 PM

Ah, my kind of religious bigot exactly.

William Wilberforce

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 07:05 PM

William Wiberforce

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 12:06 PM

I'm sure there are many. Pride and inflexibility on both sides prevented a compromise that might have prevented a great tragedy on many fronts. Grievences, just or otherwise, can fuel hate that lasts for generations, even centuries, long after the real causes are understood or lost to memory altogether.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 11:52 AM

Are there lessons for the present and the future in this focus on what happened in the 1860s and 1870s?

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 10:40 AM

Greg, I paused from posting a while to think about this. I admit I had much to learn. I'm not mad, I'm not trying to be offensive, I'll do my best not to be pompous or bombastic as I know I can be.

I clearly see two distinct lines of argument on this. Tell you what, I'm willing to admit that Southern accounts of The Reconstruction emphasize their grievences against the North and downplay their own inequitites if you'll admit the posibility, just the posibility that Northern accounts written during the Civil Rights movement might, just might, focus on the South's inequities and soft sell the South's grievences against the North. I won't even insist on call what was written long after the fact revisionist history.

Here's what I mean. In 1867 Texas completed the requirements that Lincoln set down for readmission to the Union (interesting point, if you can't secede why do you have to be readmitted?) and President Johnson certified the state was ready. Congress, dominated by the Radical Republicans, voided the agreement and imposed new conditions on readmission often described by both sets of historians as far more harsh. That much is accepted as fact. What about a comparison of the two views on some salient points?

The Test Oath was imposed as a requirement for voting which lead to the events I quoted above. Northern accounts describe the Test Oath as "a simple oath of loyalty" to the Union that Southerners refused to take. In fact, it was an oath that stated the swearer had not served in the Confederate army or any government position under the Confederate states. It wasn't a test of a willingness to be loyal to the Union from that point on which most Texans would have accepted, it was a test to determine who to punish for supporting secession. The result was that the majority of white Texans were disenfranchised causing no little discontent. After the oath was imposed, despite the fact Blacks only 30% of the population in Texas, they represented 55% of the registered voters (rough statistics, but I can quote sources). The 14th Amendment only came into play later and the clauses you cite were a moot point given the Test Oath. They're also generally used as evidence of the shift from Lincoln's conciliatory view of reunification to the punative view of it driven by the Radical Republican controlled congress. They were seen as part of the problem. Jim Crow had nothing to do with the North's thirst for vengence against the South.

Northern accounts talk about the KKK in Texas during the Reconstruction. Treatment of black was harsh and generally unjust, but, in fact, the Klan never made it to Texas until it's revival in the 1920s. It's closer to the truth to say that the Army was not able to counter the rampant lawlessness both accounts describe. As a result vigilante groups who sprang up across the state. I don't doubt their justice was harsh. The Marshal Law imposed by the military several times and was harsh, too (the prisoners at Guantanamo are under Marshal Law as a comparison). I also don't doubt that they tried to suppress or take revenge on Blacks, but still they were never affliated with the Klan or what it came to represent much later on. Calling these groups "the Klan" is same as someone in the 50s calling labor activists in the 1880s and 90s communists. Pure demagoguery. Whatever I say this isn't a pretty part of the South's history. On the other hand, the Army could do little to curb lawlessness and if the US had had the wisdom to follow the British path to eliminating slavery, most of it could have been avoided. Both the North and South are to blame for that failure.

I see Northern accounts claim that the fact that Texas was producing more cotton after The Reconstruction shows it actually had a positive impact on the economy. Hardly. Remember Texas was not Georgia and only a small portion of the state had been devoted to cotton farming before the war. It was still mostly frontier with much of population living as subsistance farmers on the barter system. With Reconstruction, all debts and taxs had to be paid in hard currency. Of course, there wasn't any since most if not all of the specie in the state had gone into the war and the blockade prevented any from coming in. There was no Federal Reserve to make sure that banks were solvent and had enough money to keep the economy working. The economy collapsed. Eventually most of the eastern portion of the state turned to their only possible cash crop, cotton, even in the parts of the state not suited to it. Wheat production in the Red River Valley was wiped out because it didn't pay. Even then the shift to cotton came slowly with considerable difficulty since cash was required to buy seed and pay the large amounts of labor required. Small landholders were forced out completely or moved further west where, fortunately there was another "cash crop", wild Spanish cattle.

I could go on, but it won't matter. You're probably not going to agree and I'm looking forward to another stinging reply with advice on which histories to read. Sorry, but frankly it's easy to see both verions of the truth have their own bias, the South trying to overlook its abuse of Blacks and the North trying to overlook its lust for revenge for the war.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 07:09 PM

I'm indignant that the Radical[sic] Republicans, the party of Lincoln who held the majority of power in Texas for over 9 years, refused to ratify it...

I think you're a bit confused about the 14th Amendment; in addition to defining citizens and the rights of citizenship in Section 1 it reaffirms the prohibition of voting by participants in the Rebellion in Section 2 and in Section three disqualifies former Confederates from holding office.

Right you are- if it's posted on someone's website, it's got to be the true and complete story- not just a 'sound-bite' for promoting a State by a George Bush state agency or a bowdlerized and over-simplified entry in a Readers' Digest-type condensed cyber-encyclopedia.

You're just confirming what I've said by quoting meaningless and distasteful anodyne phrases -likely originally drawn from those very Jim Crow histories- like Reconstruction brought great lawlessness...

If you're at all interested in the actual facts & the complete story, I could suggest a few sources. Curiously enough, a place to start would be the bibliography in T. J. Stiles Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War NY, Knoph, 2002. The book deals in part with the situation in Missouri; similar to the Texas experiences. The works he cites in the bibliography cover most of the South. Also take a look at Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 & check out the bibliography there, too. Then we'll talk-

Enjoy-

Greg

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 06:16 PM

great stuff, all this "reparations" and "the sins of the fathers ahall be visited on the children". But what precisely is it going to mean in practise when they start sorting the legislation out? I am white, born in England. My son is married to a woman in Virginia who is black. So, in relation to any potential kids , who exactly is going to pay what, and to whom?

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 02:29 PM

"By the way, I can't tell from what you've written: are you proud of the fact that Texas was the last to ratify the 14th Ammendment?"

Quite the contrary. I'm indignant that the Radical Republicans, the party of Lincoln who held the majority of power in Texas for over 9 years, refused to ratify it in order to maintain their power as long as possible.

"Reconstruction brought great lawlessness, aggravated by the appearance of roving desperadoes. Radical Republicans, carpetbaggers, and scalawags controlled the government for several years, during which time they managed to lay the foundations for better road and school systems. Texas was readmitted to the Union in Mar., 1870, after ratifying the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments. Although Texas was not as racially embittered as the Deep South, the Ku Klux Klan and its methods flourished for a time as a means of opposing the policies of the radical Republicans"

Texas History - Infoplease

"The 1869 gubernatorial election was one of the most turbulent and controversial in Texas history. Favoritism by the military for candidate Davis over A.J. Hamilton caused Governor E.M. Pease to resign September 30. General J.J. Reynolds ordered the drawing up of a new voter registration list, eliminating many of those who had qualified in 1867. Troops stationed at the polls probably prevented many Democrats from voting: only about half of the registered white voters actually cast a ballot, and many polling places were either not opened, or ordered closed. Irregularities were reported but never investigated, and official returns reported that Davis won by slightly more than 800 votes."

Texas Governors - Texas State Archives and Library Commission

I see what you mean. Who prevented whom from voting?

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 10:42 AM

I was afraid of that; yer not funnin'.

The whole "evil carpetbagger/scalawag" & "po' white folks bein'oppressed by the 'Nigras' and Yankees" bullshit is the invention of racist & Jim Crown historians writing in the late 19th/early 20th Century to justify the "lost cause" and rationalize the "redemption" of the South- i.e., the return to the ante-bellum situation as far as Blacks were concerned. This nonsense made it into the textbooks used all over the U.S.- North as well as South- up through the early 1970's. (It may STILL be in textbooks used in the South- i've no first-hand knowledge of these). And it worked like a charm- lots of people-yourself included, it seems- still believe the fairy tale; lots also believe that "Gone With The Wind" and "The Birth of a Nation" (a.k.a. "The Klansman") are documentaries.

You've got the chronology reversed as well. "Reconstruction" measures was imposed BECAUSE the rights of Blacks & other citizens were being sytematically disregarded; support for secession had NOT been monolithic anywhere in the South either before or during the 'War of the Rebellion'; Blacks and (non-seccessionist) Whites were being killed n a regular basis. Read the House Committee reports on the Klan, for instance- plenty of other primary documentation out there, all disregarded and/or suppressed in the Jim Crow "histories"[sic] mentioned above).

As an example, your anecdote of the Republican Texas governor thus leaves out the fact that he was "voted"[sic] out of office because a substantial number of the populace entitled to vote-Black AND White- were terrorized out of voting or were dead.

There's plenty of information out there & readily available if you'd like to check out the truth of the situation- both primary documentation from the pre-Jim-Crow-History era, and newer studies from the 1960's on; the documentation is overwhelming. And no,these studies are NOT all by "prejudiced Yankees"- the majority of them are coming out of Southern Universities.

This is not to say the North was blameless- both sections of the country united after 1876 with the purpose of selling the 'Nigras' back down the river.

By the way, I can't tell from what you've written: are you proud of the fact that Texas was the last to ratify the 14th Ammendment?

Regards, Greg

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 11:28 PM

Actually my knowledge of the history of The Reconstruction, at least in Texas, is fairly detailed. For example, since veterans of the Confederate Army couldn't get their right vote back until after the state ratified the 14th Amendment and since they'd all vote for Democrats anyway (remember, this far back, reverse the parties), the Republican controled state legislature refused to approve the amendment until virtually forced to by the Federal government. Texas was the last state to do so.

That done, the Republican Governor and legislature were voted out of office. The Governor refused to give up power, going so far as to wire Grant for Federal troops to put down the "rebellion" and locked himself in the Governor's mansion. Ex-Texas Rangers (the Rangers were disbanded during The Reconstruction and replaced by what what has been generally described as "secret police") climbed into a second story window of the mansion and helped escort the former Governor out of Austin, tarred and feathered on a rail. Texas didn't elect another Republican Governor for nearly one hundred years.

Say what you will about the Civil War, the South's hatred for the North did not mature to full flower until The Reconstruction. That impoverished the South as much as the march to the sea. And some of the Jim Crow laws were pure vengence for it once the Yankees were driven back north.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 10:42 PM

Lost it all to those Carpetbagging, Scallywagging scum...

You actually ignorant enough to believe that 'lost cause' fairytale, or you jus' funnin'?

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 08:48 PM

Yeah, Strick, yer observations seem purdy reasonable... 'cept there's one thing that we are grossly overlooking here...

This thread was about "slavery, poverty and culture" and well, on the first tow of those "slavery and poverty", like why should developed countries accept exploitation, quasi-slavery and poverty of anyone who is producing the goods that we consume? Hmmmmmm? See where we are going with this? If China, for instance, can *force* it's people to produce widgits with child labor, and even adult labor, fir peanuts, this is *not* a free or open market. In essence, because of the condition in China, labor becomes a manipulated variable much like the protectionism that is becoming an issue in the US... If the playing fields are level, then fine. But they aren't. Think about it.

There are all kinds of variables which border on protectionism that exist in this so-called global free market. The US subsidizes its pet industries making them attractive. It also spends lots of dough on military eguipement and in doing so makes these corporations more competative on the world market... So when we talk protectionism, I hope we will take in the big picture...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 07:07 PM

Agreed. The system is set up so that the burden will always tend to fall on those who have the least.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 04:49 PM

Ah, but there's a host of problems with that McGrath. A simple one. It's not enough to just give money to poor countries, even assuming the money won't get skimmed off before it does any good. Giving money to poor countries alone doesn't solve the basic problems that cause it to be poor. They benefit only when the money is invested in education, infrastructure, factories and other things that create long term jobs. The catch is that those investments can't really be productive on their own; the country's too poor to buy what it produces from that investment, at least in the beginning. The investment will only pay off if you drop trade barriers as well, open your markets to the poor country until it can become rich enough sustain the investments.

Unfortunately, that will look as if you're exporting jobs to the poor country. I'm not saying that the current export of jobs from the rich, developed world is intentional, that corporations are trying to help developing countries out of the goodness of their hearts, but if you don't drop trade barriers to those countries so they can sell you what they produce for less than you make it for yourself, you will straggling any investment you do make in them. You can't help a poor country by just sharing your money or technology with them. You have to share your jobs, too.

That's not a politically popular observation, at least in the US, but I believe it's true.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 04:14 PM

Precisely - that's why you can't do it on an individual level. What you can say is that a country has built its relatively wealthy present position on a base of money acquired through the slave system, which was largely how the Industrial Revolution in Britain was financed.

And this means that money paid to help poor countries develop isn't generosity, it's using a tiny fraction of the money that we only have because it was unjustly acquired in the past, to help in the present. Not necessarily primarily to help the descendants of people who were exploited in the past. It's not that kind of debt that can be measured out in legalistic ways - but it is a debt.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 03:21 PM

I was more open to the idea of reparations before I heard some of the legal arguments explaining who owed what for what. I was struck by the "case" against a particular wall street brokerage. It seems the brothers that founded one of the it's anticedents had owned four slaves but sold them prior to moving to New York and going into a completely different kind of business. The was the line used to decide that the brokerage house owed an extraordinary amount of money in reparations. The case against IBM, a company not even in existance until long after slavery was abolished, was even more interesting. Frankly you could get the idea that either argument was just a rationalization for suing companies with sufficiently deep pockets to be worthwhile, not an attempt to go after the real people who supposedly benefited from slavery in proportion to their "crimes".

Assessing the truely guilty might be hard to do now, of course. By and large those people who didn't lose all they had earned on the back of slavery in the Civil War certainly did during the Reconstruction. Lost it all to those Carpetbagging, Scallywagging scum who... ops, sorry, skip that part.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 01:23 PM

"money alone does not repair anything or make things better" - deoends on what you mean by that. You can never "repair" the past or make it better than it was, because it's gone. But you can certainly use money to repair things today and make them better.

And if you are profiting today from crimes done before your time, that's where that money rightfully belongs. Individually in some cases, but more especially, collectively. Not using it that way is a kind of theft.

However, seeing all this as a matter of repaying debts to the legal heirs of the people who were enslaved or exploited or whatever, that's not the way to go. That's just a recipe for enriching lawyers.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 09:06 AM

I fear that blame alone does not repair anything.

I fear also that money alone does not repair anything or make things better, even if it is thought that the later redistribution of money somehow ought to.

Attempts to provide money for past injustice only make divisions between factions making present claims (no matter how justified those claims) and simply leads to yet more feelings of guilt and jealousy - when/if such claims prove successful. This concept may appear to just but I feel that it simply ties us permanently to arguments about the past and prevents present and future problems from being addressed.

If the thought is that you can always pay money later for inflicting injustice - there is no real way of preventing us from just carrying on inflicting injustice. All you have to do is to ensure that you exploit big enough in the first place.

I think that repairation should be made in terms of honestly and openly accepting that mistakes were made but I don't think that repairation should have anything to do with money. When it was money or rather greed that was usually the cause of the mistakes in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 07:57 AM

Reparations is a different matter from guilt. It's recognising that our current collective wealth, and other people's collective poverty is to a considerable extent founded on theft exploitation and injustice. And the implication of that is that a large part of that existing wealth ought to be available to make things better.

That seems eminently fair, as a guiding principle in economic affairs. Applying it in a legalistic way, sorting out who owes what on anineuvidual or local basis, and picking out particular historic injustices and ignoring others, that is something else.

Essentially what it comes down to is that we have to think in terms of collective wealth, and collective responsibility to use that respopnsibily, and that is a hard notion for some people to accept.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 06:08 AM

The only thing we can do is to learn from all this and try to prevent it now and in the future. For we can't really do anything else now about all the bad aspects, except to openly talk about it but still manage to feel bad and apportion blame.

Yeah, if the United States is going to become a great antion or another flash in the pan it's going to have to come to terms with its past and make a better attempt tp *REPAIR* the damage...

The USA or "it" does now consist of all the direct descendents of all those that suffered from this slavery. "It" also now consists of the direct descendents of those indigenous people who did survive the attempted genocide. Looking to the past and coming to terms with this past damage is one important thing but not the only thing.

All these people do now have a vote and their efforts now, along with everyone else in the USA will decide if the USA is going to be judged as a great nation. Or if it is to follow the worst examples of the vested interests of previous empires that have come to dominate the world for a short time (like the British)..........

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 09:37 PM

Well, guilt, no. But collectively we do have a responsibility to not only talk about slavery but to try to "repair" the inequities of "wealth" created by the *slave class*....

This is what is called repairations...

No, I might not have personally been involved in slavery but the reality is that, with the "industrial revolution" on the 1840's much of America's wealth was created on the backs of black slaves. This is not an arguable fact. Nor is the fact that after "Reconstruction" in 1876 Johnny Reb was cut loose to intimidate and exploit these black slaves and their children. They called this Jim Crow...

Problem is is that Johnny Reb is still intimidating and exploiting the descendants of slaves. The 1954 Brown V. Boeard of Education Topeka, Kansas only ordered states to desegregate as quickly as they saw fit, which meant, like never... Earl Warren wrote the majority opinion and became the villian of Johnny Reb until the day he died... But di the schools desegragate? Nope... Most scholls today are virtually segregated as is our society...

And in every major city in America there are desendants of slaves livin' in poverty, without opportinuties, without access to a decent education, without food for that matter. Their is so little hope that their kids just go left. They do drugs and become involved in crime. And we sit back and look at whats going on askin' "Jus' why these folks that way?"

Geeze, like Bob Dylan so appropriately said, "it don't take a weatherman to tell ye which way the wind blows..."

Yeah, if the United States is going to become a great antion or another flash in the pan it's going to have to come to terms with its past and make a better attempt tp *REPAIR* the damage...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 08:04 PM

Guilt about the past is pointless and silly - it's not as if any of us were about, and we have no more responsibility for what people a couple of centuries ago did than we do for what people did ten thousand years ago. And if you found someone feeling guilty, or angry, because of the things that happened in Ancient Egypt. you'd tell them to lie down and take a rest.

What matters is to learn from the things that have happened in the past, and recognise when things that happen in the present (that we could try to do something about), show a family resemblance to the evils we hope have gone for ever.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: The Shambles
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 07:49 PM

I am in contact with this sort of thing very regularly as I am involved with musical projects with a lot of recently arrived people. A lot of what I am doing makes me very sad, though the thing that cheers me is the wonderful music that happens in these circumstances, a bit of culture that people have in their heads that they can cling on to in a strange and threatening new world. Thinking about all this, and my relation to it(am I being helpful, or am I an exploiter??) gives me a whole new angle into the world of slavery and colonialism.

The only thing we can do is to learn from all this and try to prevent it now and in the future. For we can't really do anything else now about all the bad aspects, except to openly talk about it but still manage to feel bad and apportion blame.

We can't do anything now either about the cultural and musical benefits - except celebrate these. I feel that it would be sensible to try and feel good about all the fine music that has resulted from transplanting whole cultures into a alien ones - if not about the motives, the manner of it and all the resulting suffering.

If we can't feel good and free from guilt, or not feel we are possibly exploiting this positive musical aspect - perhaps all the suffering od so many, will have served no purpose at all?

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 01:59 PM

I'm not saying that the two situations were identical. I'm drawing a parallel. Another one is with apartheid South Africa. In all cases the constitutional formalities of democracy were maintained, and used as a way to extinguish whatever civil liberties needed to be extinguished.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 01:34 PM

But McGrath, we've seen in thread that shall remain nameless, Hitler began to disassemble all Germany's civil liberties almost as soon as he came to office. Certain, he was in complete control even befor Hindenburg's death.

But cheer up. Hitler was appointed Chancelor, not elected. No doubt someone will make a comparison to the Supreme Court and Florida, but it's that's much more the working of a Constitutional democracy than what happened in Germany starting in 1933.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 01:26 PM

Point well made, Strict, and I'm not sayin' that poverty is exclusively a Southern problem but not long ago I saw the listing of states by the percentage of their respective populations that lived in poverty and not surprisingly the Southern states occupy the top of the list. What I did find surprising is that my state, Wes Ginny, topped the list at 16.5% beating out Mississippi and Alabama...

And good points, Chief Chaos... Just a couple of other points somewhat related. The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves *only* in the Southern States...

Secondly, it was the Union's degrading burning of Southern cities by Sherman and Co, the total destruction of the South's economy, the killing off of so many of the South's educated and a dozen years of occupation that insured that the Civil War (which it wasn't) would never really end, which, with the exception of the physical violence, it hasn't. Jim Crow is alive and well. Anti-Union/governemnt feelings are alive and well and with the current president, those states that formed "the Union" are in Johnny Reb's sigths....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 01:21 PM

The fact that it was legal, in a democratic and law-based society, was the thing that was peculiarly horrible about it. In the same way there is something more horrible about a state-authorised pogrom than a race riot.

It's one of the reasons why Nazi Germany is such a chilling precedent - it was in many ways formally a democaracy. The government was only there because of the results of an election, and parliament and the courts were all still in place.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 01:08 PM

First - Slavery is bad, evil, no doubts about it!
Second - Although bad and evil it was LEGAL
Third - The economy of the North was based on large numbers of immigrants (thus negating the need for slaves or high wages for workers) working in a more highly technological area making textiles from cotton.
Fourth - The economy of the South was based on the production of Rice, Cotton, Tobacco and Sugar Cane. All of which at the time were very people intensive in that they needed planters and harvesters. Immigrants for the most part did not come south. Meaning that slavery was still acceptable because it was necessary to the economy. Machines to do this work did not exist at the time and were not even introduced until after the American civil war.
Fifth - The northern section of the Union wished to strike down terriffs against cotton and the other agricultural products of the southern section of the union, coming from India and other nations/colonies (which by the way were also being planted and harvested by slaves or near as much to slaves as it made no difference.

Now, knowing these five facts, can you just for a moment put yourselves into the shoes of a plantation owner that has been raised believing that slaves were property that you must now set them all free, losing your investment (you paid top dollar for them you know)with no recompense? With no guarantee that they will return to work for you at whatever wages you can afford? And at the same time the price of your commodity (the source of income and hence your ability to pay those wages) is going to drop like a stone because the northerners want to be able to buy cheap foreign imports?

I'm not defending the people who had slaves but I can sure see why they wouldn't want to just set them free.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 12:59 PM

Poverty isn't to be identified with slavery, true enough. It would be quite possible to have slaves kept in luxury, but they'd still be slaves.

But the attitudes that underly a slave system - the ability to draw a line between ourselves and other humans that means we see them as less than human, that still exists inour society, and that does relate to the way people can shrug off appalling inequality of all sorts, as if it wasn't something that concerned them.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 10:48 AM

"I vividly remember working in Fulton Bottom in Ricmond in late 60's and there were folks livin' in cabins with dirt floors and no running water. Last year I was in the Hill Country of Mississippi on a blues expedition and played music at a house very similar, 'cept this house didn't even have electricity..."

You mean like my grandparent's house before they passed away in my youth? The only poor are in the South? Been to any projects in the North lately?

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 09:44 AM

The trouble is, when you build on shaky foundations, you've got a building that has a built-in instability.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 09:27 AM

Semantics, folks...

Take you a visit to many areas of the South and you'll find that conditions haven't changed much since slavery... I vividly remember working in Fulton Bottom in Ricmond in late 60's and there were folks livin' in cabins with dirt floors and no running water. Last year I was in the Hill Country of Mississippi on a blues expedition and played music at a house very similar, 'cept this house didn't even have electricity...

Now, witness "Two-Tierism" where Boss Hog, eith the massive support of the Bush administration is negotiating labor contracts with unions which in essence, much like Bush's thoughts on Social Security, says, "okay, we'll let you *have* the same benefits you *have had* but the next generation of employees won't be so lucky!"

Yeah, folks, we are moving ever and ever closer to Boss Hog's cotton plantations... one step at a time......

(But, Bobert, what about "Personal Responsibily"?)

Oh yeah, for those of you tempted to throw out the Boss Hog's "personal responsibility" PR crap let me interpret that cutesy little phrase. Translated it means "I was born rich and will reamin rich. You weren't, so get over it..."

See you all in the cotten fields...

Commie Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 08:07 AM

Our obsession about national borders, and the different ways, tied in with that, that we treat each other - I think that is going to be one major thing our descendants will find hard to understand about us today, in the way we find it hard to understand how people previous generations had this moral blindness towards slavery.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 04:43 AM

The orignial posting on this thread, about tribalism and its effects on immigrants arriving in a new country, has considerable relevance to Britain at the moment. The cockling tragedy in Morecambe Bay, and a similar incident involving the death of a lot of immigrant workers in a van accident a while back, brings to public notuce aspects of life we are not generally aware of.
    There are quite a lot of disparate ethnic groups establishing themselves here at the moment, often to a considerable extent mutually antagonistc, and without the normal backup systems of land, long-standing culture,legal systems of their own etc. An inevtable outcome of this is the rise of what are often termed "gang-masters": people who can operate at the interface between cultures and deliver labourers for badly-paid exploitative and often illegal work.
    I am in contact with this sort of thing very regularly as I am involved with musical projects with a lot of recently arrived people. A lot of what I am doing makes me very sad, though the thing that cheers me is the wonderful music that happens in these circumstances, a bit of culture that people have in their heads that they can cling on to in a strange and threatening new world. Thinking about all this, and my relation to it(am I being helpful, or am I an exploiter??) gives me a whole new angle into the world of slavery and colonialism.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Amos
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 12:00 AM

I believe the US Navy was trying to protect trade against the corsairs of the eastern Med.

A

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: GUEST,satchel
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 11:23 PM

First, let's not forget about the waves of immigrants that stayed in the eastern seaboard cities after coming out of rural conditions. Some remained parochial, others were influenced by the cosmopolitan environs into which they came.

The constitution was drafted to bring together a group of very disparate states that were failing miserably under the articles of confederation. It was drafted in the summer of 1788 in Philadelphia as a reaction to the previous 13 years of paralysis under the articles.

In the 18th century, ideas like "liberty" meant different things than we think of today(See Bailyn, Idoelogical Origins of the American Revolution). Liberty to the founders was the liberty to own property, including slaves. "Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness" was really a lot more like "life liberty and the pursuit of profit" (see Jack Greene, Pursuits of Happiness). So, there's really not a question of knowing better--they knew, but it was really outside the realm of 18th century thinking on the subject. This is not an excuse, merely an explanation.

Even so, people like Jefferson accepted slavery as a necessary evil. However, as the South became increasingly alienated from the rest of the country, many enthusiastic but misguided defenses were made as to the "positive good" of slavery--e.g. had a civilizing effect, etc. These "positive good" defenses were only undertaken by Southern politicians at the very end, right before the beginning of the Civil War. The cost paid to end slavery in the US was indeed high, in much more than lives and dollars.

The origins of slavery in the US are complex. One of the best books on the subject is Edmund Morgan's American Slavery American Freedom oer 30 years old and still a seminal text. One of the key points that Morgan makes is that until indentured servants revolted in 1676 in Virginia (Bacon's Rebellion) race was a much more fluid concept in the colonies. For example, Anthony Johnson, a black man, owned a plantation complete with slaves on the eastern shore of MAryland in the 17th century (Breen and Innis, Myne Owne Ground)until "black" became associated with "slave" in the late 17th/early 18th century.

Finally, the indians of Virginia didn't make very effective slaves--they had the home field advantage and could easily remove themselves from the tobacco fields of early Virginia.

Keep readings, boys, keep reading!

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 07:30 PM

The difference with chattel slavery, as it developed in the USA, was that it was happening in a technologically advanced country that was also very conscious of being a democracy, with a constitution that guaranteed this democracy.

That was pretty well unique, and that is what is strange about it, and very frightening. It is an indication that formal democracy, and constitutions and courts and all, are not necessarily the guarantee of freedom that we might like to think.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Gareth
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 07:05 PM

An interesting thread.

If you visit the Bahamas, or Barbados you will find many descendeds of those UK "Citizens" condemed to slavery. Thier crime ? Being on the wrong side, or in the wrong place, after a rebellion.

Shambles has it right, the Corsairs were not unknown for thier swoops on the West Country, Wales or Ireland looking for slaves.

I fear that slavery was not a "White on Black" historical problem only, no matter what the "politically correct" may say.

Incidently, for the seafaring fans, just what was the infant US of A Navy doing in the Mediteranean in the 1800's ?

Nelson himself was full of praise for the actions of the US of A Navy at that time.

Or again, for the seafaring fans, what was the RN's "Blackbird" patrols off West, and East, Africa doing ?

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Amos
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 06:46 PM

I think many of them were also ahead of their times in releasing their slaves from bondage; but it is still a telling question. Power corrupts absolutely.

A

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 05:03 PM

A wise question.

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 05:00 PM

I'm not criticising, just puzzled.

What kind of blazing inconsistencies are we guilty of that are going to make our descendants gasp with astonishment in the same way as we surely have to, thinking of people who could put their name to a document like that, and go home to a slave plantation?

Subject: RE: BS: slavery, poverty and culture
From: Strick
Date: 18 Mar 04 - 04:26 PM

The evil in a man own heart is often harder to see than the acts of a tyrant 3,000 miles away, McGarth. ;)

(Down with King George! No taxation without representation! Don't Tread On Me!)