America Lost the Civil War With The Lincoln War State

[American Dream]

When I went through some of the stuff that was presented in the 'Fvck Ron Paul' thread such as Alternet articles. A lot of the people who HATE Ron Paul are aligned with the Israel lobby.

What is this supposed to mean about Ron Paul in a global sense?

[American Dream]

Sounder, I think Zinn's account affirms what is valid within publius' narrative and also corrects the oversights and omissions so as to keep the rat poison clearly at bay.

Did you read it?

It’s my own problem that I’m tired of licking AD’s litmus test.

People might want to consider also that life was rough for many if not most folk back then, slave or not.

Huh???

Sounder, wondering what your current position is towards publius, groups like the League of the South and neo-Confederate Movement in general...

[publius]

AD, you are misrepresenting my stand.

This is intentional.

I am concerned with Tyranny and how the Civil War Presidency created the overwhelming Federal State through murdering two million people and creating a Military Despotism. This was 150 years ago. I see this as new because we have a War Dictatorship and this was a new thing in US history.

I am not a Neo-Confederate. Nor am i a Fascist supporter of brutal force for a beautiful ideal like you. My position is that the nation would be better off had no Civil War occured and I stipulate this is because 2 million combatants would not have been slaughtered, a Federal police state not created. My thought further is that slavery was the least consequential issue at hand in that war and Federal power the single overriding objective.

Do note that the racist hate groups arise after defeat and military occupation.

[slomo]

Not to hijack a thread on the American Civil War, but while while we're on the subject of racism, I just wanted to throw this little gem into the mix.

In particular, I draw your attention to the alternative title, appearing just beneath the title that is well-known in popular culture.

I've read it cover-to-cover twice, and it uses "race" predominantly in the sense of "species."

Did you know Darwin was a committed abolitionist? That abolitionism so to speak ran in his own family, and was the subject of conflict among them?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/books ... wanted=all

Adrian Desmond and James Moore published a highly regarded biography of Darwin in 1991. The argument of their new book, “Darwin’s Sacred Cause,” is bluntly stated in its subtitle: “How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin’s Views on Human Evolution.” They set out to overturn the widespread view that Darwin was a “tough-minded scientist” who unflinchingly followed the trail of empirical research until it led to the stunning and unavoidable theory of evolution. This narrative, they claim, is precisely backward. “Darwin’s starting point,” they write, “was the abolitionist belief in blood kinship, a ‘common descent’ ” of all human beings.

SNIP

For Desmond and Moore, the voyage of the Beagle was less important for the accumulation of finches and barnacles than for giving Darwin an eyewitness experience of slavery, which “put shredded flesh on the Wedgwood cameo.” Particularly poignant was a scream overheard when he was canoeing through the “putrid exhalations” of mangrove swamps in the Brazilian interior. “To this day,” Darwin later wrote in his journal, “if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate.”

There's a great one-hour interview with one of the authors on Against the Grain.
http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/ ... nd-slavery

Make of it whatever you will,

Arguably his work should be noted more for moving away from the racist paradigms of the time than for the ways in which it undoubtedly remained within them. His involvement with those who later became known as Social Darwinists was at a distance. Fundamentally, the idea of a common human ancestry, all of us descended from apes no less, militates against ideas of supremacy for a given human sub-race. Insofar as these even exist. The modern Darwinian synthesis in relation to empirical genetics have done much to undermine the very idea of "race." The eugenics movement of the 20th century with its pseudo-scientific basis can hardly be blamed on him. And today I believe you'll find more racism among those most provoked by the idea of evolution.

but don't forget to remember the most common application of this monumental work, which has actually been in the social sciences, not as much in the biological sciences.

That's an incredible statement to make about the central paradigm of the biological sciences and I doubt you'll let it stand to your own scrutiny.

I am distinguishing it's most applied use - to justify what has become known as "Social Darwinism" - rather than its central position in biology in a theoretical sense. I will point out that natural selection and evolutionary dynamics are routinely ignored in the applied biosciences, notably agriculture, where it should be clear from evolutionary theory that creating monocultures is dangerous, or in medical practice, where profligate antibiotic use only selects for the most virulent strains. The application of what I view as dangerous agricultural practices to "human stock" is one of the most insidious phenomena to grace the 20th Century, eugenics.

To be fair, Darwin was cautious about eugenics, but not his half-cousin, nor his son:

Of his surviving children, George, Francis and Horace became Fellows of the Royal Society, distinguished as astronomer, botanist and civil engineer, respectively. His son Leonard went on to be a soldier, politician, economist, eugenicist and mentor of the statistician and evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher.

Darwin was intrigued by his half-cousin Francis Galton's argument, introduced in 1865, that statistical analysis of heredityshowed that moral and mental human traits could be inherited, and principles of animal breeding could apply to humans. InThe Descent of Man Darwin noted that aiding the weak to survive and have families could lose the benefits of natural selection, but cautioned that withholding such aid would endanger the instinct of sympathy, "the noblest part of our nature", and factors such as education could be more important. When Galton suggested that publishing research could encourage intermarriage within a "caste" of "those who are naturally gifted", Darwin foresaw practical difficulties, and thought it "the sole feasible, yet I fear utopian, plan of procedure in improving the human race", preferring to simply publicise the importance of inheritance and leave decisions to individuals.

Galton named the field of study "eugenics" in 1883. In contrast to Darwin's cautious thoughts on voluntary improvement, negative eugenics later developed on a basis of Mendelian genetics and led to compulsory sterilisation laws which brought the field into disrepute.

I don't mean to pick on poor Chuck Darwin, and I certainly believe in the mechanics of natural selection, if not its most facile interpretation by the Dawkins crowd. But I am pointing out that while AD is supplying us with visceral descriptions of the evils of Dixieland, evils of which everybody is already well-aware, I am reading very little in this thread about the institutionalized racism that existed at the higher levels of Anglo-American society in the late 19th and early 20th Century - racism essentially accepted by our scientific luminaries, in varying degrees - and the great damage it has done (not the least of which is providing motivation for Adolph Hitler's program).

Of course I was being provocative and some might say even manipulative, but the larger point still stands.

[Sounder]

Hey, you know AD, your use of the pejorative is simply masterful. Bit trigger happy though.

publius, please excuse AD, he seems to think he is a well qualified thought cop. It strikes me as being fascistic in style, but that is just me and that assessment may well be unfair.

AD
My position toward publius, not that it is really any of your business, is that I would like to better understand his reasoning processes. You see, I like people that think differently than me because I find that those people are the most helpful for focusing and improving my own thinking. Apparently you believe in the infective potentials of distasteful thought more than I do.

My ‘position’ is that understanding of any given situation or is better achieved by listening to what another person has to say rather than to accuse another through association and browbeating of representing odious human traits that excuses, nay demands that one not listen to the words of said sub-human, thereby winning the argument before one has to actually exert any effort to win said argument through the use of intellect.

Also it is my position that getting very upset does not qualify as a critical treatment of the issues.

[American Dream]

AD, you are misrepresenting my stand.

This is intentional.

I am concerned with Tyranny and how the Civil War Presidency created the overwhelming Federal State through murdering two million people and creating a Military Despotism. This was 150 years ago. I see this as new because we have a War Dictatorship and this was a new thing in US history.

I am not a Neo-Confederate. Nor am i a Fascist supporter of brutal force for a beautiful ideal like you. My position is that the nation would be better off had no Civil War occured and I stipulate this is because 2 million combatants would not have been slaughtered, a Federal police state not created. My thought further is that slavery was the least consequential issue at hand in that war and Federal power the single overriding objective.

Do note that the racist hate groups arise after defeat and military occupation.

Publius, I have no idea what your organizational and ideological affiliations are because you've never told us. I'm sure this is intentional.

However, it's never too late to change: You could now tell us a bit more about the cause you are shilling for here...

[American Dream]

publius, please excuse AD, he seems to think he is a well qualified thought cop. It strikes me as being fascistic in style, but that is just me and that assessment may well be unfair.

AD
My position toward publius, not that it is really any of your business, is that I would like to better understand his reasoning processes. You see, I like people that think differently than me because I find that those people are the most helpful for focusing and improving my own thinking. Apparently you believe in the infective potentials of distasteful thought more than I do.

My ‘position’ is that understanding of any given situation or is better achieved by listening to what another person has to say rather than to accuse another through association and browbeating of representing odious human traits that excuses, nay demands that one not listen to the words of said sub-human, thereby winning the argument before one has to actually exert any effort to win said argument through the use of intellect.

Also it is my position that getting very upset does not qualify as a critical treatment of the issues.

I'm wondering Sounder, because I've gotten the impression that you are far more positive towards the Militia Movement and various "heroes" of that movement than am I. Do you see any racist/militia-type subtext to publius' discourse?

I wonder what you really do see and think about all this...

[Sounder]

I've gotten the impression that you are far more positive towards the Militia Movement and various "heroes" of that movement than am I.

Really, hey everybody AD is positive towards the Militia Movement and various "heroes" of that movement, what a dick.

AD you can stick you 'impression' up your ass where it belongs. Lordy lord you are a willful numnut to think it appropriate to project so much idiocy on to others.

But like I said it sure is easier than actually exerting any effort to win said argument through the use of intellect.

[American Dream]

I've gotten the impression that you are far more positive towards the Militia Movement and various "heroes" of that movement than am I.

Really, hey everybody AD is positive towards the Militia Movement and various "heroes" of that movement, what a dick.

AD you can stick you 'impression' up your ass where it belongs. Lordy lord you are a willful numnut to think it appropriate to project so much idiocy on to others.

So in other words: you don't want to talk about it.

OK!

[Plutonia]

*cough* *cough*

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healt ... laims.html

[slomo]

I've gotten the impression that you are far more positive towards the Militia Movement and various "heroes" of that movement than am I.

Really, hey everybody AD is positive towards the Militia Movement and various "heroes" of that movement, what a dick.

AD you can stick you 'impression' up your ass where it belongs. Lordy lord you are a willful numnut to think it appropriate to project so much idiocy on to others.

I am reading the thread now from its inception, where it was very clearly hijacked by AD's conflation of anti-federalism (whether or not that idea has merit on its own terms) with support for slavery. It seems to be a consistent feature of this thread, the insistence that the rejection of the authority of the federal government must necessarily coincide with support for slavery and the most egregious (or at least visible) forms of racism.

[slomo]

I've gotten the impression that you are far more positive towards the Militia Movement and various "heroes" of that movement than am I.

Really, hey everybody AD is positive towards the Militia Movement and various "heroes" of that movement, what a dick.

AD you can stick you 'impression' up your ass where it belongs. Lordy lord you are a willful numnut to think it appropriate to project so much idiocy on to others.

So in other words: you don't want to talk about it.

OK!

Are you suggesting that Sounder is a KKK-loving supporter of chattel slavery?

[Sounder]

If you were interested in dealing with actual data, ideas or issues, I would be most happy to talk. But I can see your preferences as far as rhetorical style, so you are correct to say that I have no interest "talking' with you.

Falling for trigger attempts is not my idea of a good time, so take care and leave me alone please.


slomo wrote...

I am reading the thread now from its inception, where it was very clearly hijacked by AD's conflation of anti-federalism (whether or not that idea has merit on its own terms) with support for slavery. It seems to be a consistent feature of this thread, the insistence that the rejection of the authority of the federal government must necessarily coincide with support for slavery and the most egregious (or at least visible) forms of racism.

Yes thank-you slomo, that was my original point and I excused myself from the thread in order for AD to better make the point without my help. He continues to do so, so thank-you AD also.

[American Dream]

I am reading the thread now from its inception, where it was very clearly hijacked by AD's conflation of anti-federalism (whether or not that idea has merit on its own terms) with support for slavery. It seems to be a consistent feature of this thread, the insistence that the rejection of the authority of the federal government must necessarily coincide with support for slavery and the most egregious (or at least visible) forms of racism.

Slomo, if you are now going to read the rest of this thread do bear in mind these quotes from the Euan Hague essay given upthread when considering whether publius is simply upholding an anti-Federalist position (which I have no beef with, per se), or not:

Proponents of neo-Confederacy typically look to the antebellum South and the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.) for lessons on leadership, values, morality and behavior. The C.S.A., which existed during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, and its leaders Jefferson Davis, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart, Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest, are venerated as working to uphold the U.S. Constitution by preventing Abraham Lincoln's federal government from maliciously revising its provisions. Neo-Confederacy thus promotes a perspective that claims that the Civil War, often termed the War of Northern Aggression, was an unconstitutional invasion of southern states by aggressor Union forces. In this interpretation, President Lincoln is understood to be a war criminal and key amendments to the U.S. Constitution, most pertinently the Fourteenth Amendment's "equal protection" clauses, are illegal and their implementation is therefore illegitimate.

As a result of these mid-nineteenth century actions, America is thought to have diverged from the path established by the Founding Fathers and, having gone astray, abandoned the culture and foundations upon which American society should be built. The result is a "multicultural empire" that fundamentally contradicts the very meaning of America. Federal authority is asserted to be an unconstitutional infringement on states' rights and U.S. culture is considered to be "profane" and incompatible with traditional American society, given its promotion of equal rights for women, ethnic minorities, LGBT people, and non-Christian religions. Because the U.S. has become a "multicultural empire," neo-Confederate ideologues argue that it is doomed to dissolution into smaller, self-governing nation-states. This is because, in neo-Confederate belief, the idea that a state can be multi-ethnic is a contradiction in terms. Often drawing on eighteenth and nineteenth century political philosophers for justification, neo-Confederates contend that the ideal unit for governance is a small, ethnically homogeneous republic. Some advocates have gone so far as to propose a return to independent city-states and local fiefdoms. Thus, neo-Confederacy is closely intertwined with nationalist and secessionist sentiment.

Many of the proponents of neo-Confederacy are intellectuals and educators – from professors and pastors to political and community leaders. As such, although neo-Confederacy is reactionary and contains racist, sexist, elitist and antidemocratic positions, these are glossed over with a scholarly veneer of closely argued rationales, references to legislative precedents and philosophical treatises. One of the most important articulations of neo-Confederacy is the New Dixie Manifesto. Published in The Washington Post in 1995 and written by two founding members of the LOS, Thomas Fleming and J. Michael Hill, the article fulminated against the homogeneity being forced onto the United States by the media, universities and wanton federal authorities and demanded independence for southern states. Although focused on the southern states, and drawing most of its supporters from this area, neo-Confederacy is not just a southern form of nationalism. It is a conservative ideology that has gained adherents throughout the United States.

At the core of neo-Confederacy is a genetic argument, the belief that "Southern" people and culture are "Anglo-Celtic." This argument initially surfaced in the mid-1970s in the work of historian and future League Director Grady McWhiney, who died in 2006, and his colleagues at the University of Alabama. In a series of scholarly publications in prominent academic journals, McWhiney and his Southern intellectual allies maintained that at the time of the Civil War, the United States was divided between the English northern states and Celtic southern states, the residents of each practicing wholly incompatible cultures and exhibiting a historical animosity that could be dated back to early Europe. Using evidence gathered from examining surnames found in, and travel narratives about, the antebellum southern states, proponents maintained that the Civil War was a continuation of the ancient rivalry of the Celts and English.

Such a contention is problematic and is not sustainable. Not only does this argument completely bypass the central issue of slavery, but also numerous scholars have exposed the flaws in the propositions forwarded by McWhiney and other proponents of the "Celtic South" thesis. Amongst the many criticisms are demonstrations that advocates of the "Celtic South" thesis rely upon erroneous assessments of U.S. Census data from the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, incorrectly understand immigration patterns in the United States, reduce the diversity of the early American population to homogenous, culturally monolithic blocks, and expansively define who comprises "Celtic" people in a manner that is wholly inconsistent with usages employed by other scholars. Despite such challenges, the proposal that because "Southern people" speak English and are descended from European Celts they are "Anglo-Celts" now enjoys much popular currency amongst neo-Confederates.

Neo-Confederate activists are engaged in numerous struggles to control the depiction of the past and shape the future. Many curators at museums in southern states have been subjected to public and private harassment by neo-Confederates demanding that exhibitions be restaged to ensure that the Confederacy is presented in a positive light and that the "truth" about the Civil War and slavery be told. Opponents of neo-Confederacy have been threatened with lawsuits, physical injury and worse for exposing this nasty underbelly to supposedly innocuous celebrations honoring Confederate ancestors. Neo-Confederacy's advocates have been elected to school boards and other minor political positions, and have had some success in wresting control of major organizations like the Sons of Confederate Veterans from more moderate members.

Elected officials, most notably former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS), have spoken at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, expressing sympathy for the organization's positions (often, bad publicity forced quick retractions). Other politicians were members of the League of the South while in office, for example the late Alabama Republican State Senator Charles Davidson between 1994 and 1998. As a result, conservative columnist Stanley Crouch felt moved to write in 1999 that "Neo-Confederates with a disguised racial policy have risen to the top of the G.O.P." and journalist Peter Applebome wrote in Dixie Rising, "it's hard to know these days where the Confederacy ends and the Republican party begins." Believers in neo-Confederacy, historian David Goldfield assesses, "are not fringe people." Their worldview and activities have "a broader white support in the South, within the Republican Party and among some evangelical Protestants."

In sum, neo-Confederacy is an ideology, advanced by professors, pastors, politicians and other well-educated members of society, many of them in positions of authority, which offers an intellectual justification for positions that many would consider anti-democratic, racist, sexist, elitist, religiously intolerant and homophobic. It is considerably more than just support for the Confederate battle flag or nostalgia for the Old South. Neo-Confederacy is an active and ongoing attempt to reshape the United States in the Old South's image.

[American Dream]

Are you suggesting that Sounder is a KKK-loving supporter of chattel slavery?

No, but I think he's probably an OK guy who lacks discrimination where it comes to the Militia Movement and others of that ilk.

That's his business to a certain extent but not when he tries to shut down critical inquiry about characters like publius.

If we are supposed to be conspiracy-minded here, surely we can turn that lens of critical thinking towards this character too, who has already said a lot of interesting things upthread!