Monday, December 20, 2010
Arkansas Culture and Characters Let the hostilities resume
Posted by Max Brantley on Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 7:49 AM
I’ve heard it from women and from men, from sober people and from people liquored up on anti-Washington talk. The North wouldn’t let us govern ourselves, they say, and Congress laid on tariffs that hurt the South. So we rebelled. Secession and the Civil War, in other words, were about small government, limited federal powers and states’ rights.But a look through the declaration of causes written by South Carolina and four of the 10 states that followed it out of the Union — which, taken together, paint a kind of self-portrait of the Confederacy — reveals a different story. From Georgia to Texas, each state [including Arkansas] said the reason it was getting out was that the awful Northern states were threatening to do away with slavery.
Coincidentally, the commemoration of the Civil War comes as a new movement gathers steam for a constitutional amendment to allow the states to override federal laws.
Perhaps the Yugoslavian solution is next.
UPDATE: For history buffs, Guy Lancaster of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture has assembled scans of resolutions adopted in Arkansas during the secession debate.
It took two votes for Arkansas to approve secession, but the successful vote rested on the reasons laid out in the first batch of resolutions.
UPDATE II: Good post from Clarence Page on the Confederate sympathizer groups trying to scrub slavery from the discussion. And this Daily Show clip:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The South's Secession Commemoration | ||||
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Comments (43)
Showing 1-43 of 43
Such a southern apologist you are Max. Why do you apologize for actions (out of your control) that happened 150 years ago?
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My imminent landing in The Rock naturally stirs thoughts of once more navigating the white waters of the Southern mentality (race allusion intentional).
Here, then, is one of the best examinations I've ever read of that unique and curious world and how it currently reverberates, from yesterday's Salon.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_roo…
Bruce Catton had it right in the first volume of his centennial trilogy on the War, "The Coming Fury." Other excellent, often overlooked views into the root causes of the War are a little more recent, Maury Klein's well-written "Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War," and W.C. Davis' record of the founding of the Confederate government, "A Government of Our Own."
There were two distinct issues: slavery, then secession. The war occurred over the issue of secession, specifically with the firing on Fort Sumter. Secession's root was in the issue of slavery, or more specifically the right of southerners to take their slaves with them into the new territories opening in the West. It got to the point that Southern Democrats threw the election of 1860 by splitting the Democratic Party three ways, and opening the way for the upstart Republican Party to win a plurality. The politics of the time are as interesting as the battlefields, and surprisingly similar to those of the past decade ;-)
South Carolina population in the 1860's was 65% slave. See any fear here? SC had the highest percentage of slaves in any of the states and thus the most to lose for that part of the population that was into "owning people".
It was always said that the South shall rise again. Maybe it is finally time. America can go red and blue; Sarah Palin the new Jefferson Davis and Hillary the new Lincoln. Rather than a blood bath, the votes should be there for a constitutional amendment granting states the right to secede. It would be best for everyone. Well, maybe not everyone.
Other than Texas the slave states couldn't make it today if they pulled out of the Union.
All of them are welfare states and get more from the feds than they pay in.
"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue. And then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
George Orwell in his essay "In Front of Your Nose."
Of course, if we lose the internet then all this is moot.
That's where they're going with WikiLeaks, Assange, Net Neutrality.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-franken/t…
The corruption is massive. The government, the military, the wars, Halliburton, BP, polluters, the banks, Big Pharma, health insurance, mainstream media, politics, et al. -- can't survive the exposure of appalling information and truths via WikiLeaks and clones, or their game is threatened.
It already is. That's why Interpol's now joined the Assange case. They want to control information.
Parallels to America's first Civil War? Sure. But this time, 95% OF THE PEOPLE ARE THE SLAVES owned by the 5% who are masters.
Oh, fiddledeedoodah. I can't think about this any more. I'll go crazy if I do. I'll think about it tomorrow.
Comparing opposition to federal action on slavery to opposition to federal intervention in health care, gun control and aviation is disingenuous - at best.
In the former case, the federal government had a legitimate constitutional duty to act. Pelosi's reaction to someone asking whether HCR was constitutional was to say, "Are you serious?!" Notice she didn't answer the question. She knows it isn't constitutional, and doesn't give a damn.
For the sake of discussion, let us say that Texas is permitted to seceed and become the Independent Republic of Texas.
Is the United States, then, obligated to come to the defense of the Independent Republic of Texas if it is attacked by the Sovereign Nation of Mexico?
"Pelosi's reaction to someone asking whether HCR was constitutional was to say, "Are you serious?!" Notice she didn't answer the question."
I guess she knows that there actually is such a thing as a stupid question.
I'm still confused why parts of the United States of America, you know the "real America", would celebrate an act of treason against the United States of America?
Whats funny you got all these brainwashed fox news people being control by corperate America which took all the jobs away good americans and gave them to communist china which fox teaches them to hate calling them socialist .Vets and people between ages 40 and 50 cant find jobs. Then they talk this constitution crap about hcr which American rich people are more interested in keeping the chinese healthy. Which the drones haven't figure out yet that when the corperation of America destroys our goverment they will piss on patriots .Trying to tell one that the rich doesnt care about them ethier is like teaching a monkey sign language
Here is a better reason Child Labor and the Industrial Revolution. The North is full of Yeomen Farmers and the South have all the manual labor(Slaves). Let's take them and turn their children and grand children's children into free slaves, and call it minimum wage.
@SkyPilot: If Texas were to secede, I believe the Union should withdraw all military personnel and equipment, close all US facilities, and withdraw all US support for activities currently receiving federal funds, including education and research, and Medicare and Medicaid.
Get up and go to the closest Wal-Mart and look around and you'll see the slaves of 2010. The Master and his overseers are alive and well and their pressure on our necks is increasing daily.
It's stupid to re-fight the Civil War, but it's very smart to study the causes of the Civil War because we're back in those times again. Texas seceding is no joke and you can bet my neighbors in Oklahoma will be the 2nd ones out the door when the tide hits. I wouldn't miss em a bit, but as in Lincoln's day America still means all for one and one for all and no one is going to sit still and let even Rhode Island de-friend the rest of the USA.
States Rights in 2010 equates the rich smothering anything that might hold them back from becoming richer. In that mix the rich want to remove all benefits for the working people and the poor. They do indeed want us to work for nearly nothing like their new minions in foreign countries. That is their goal, American Workshops. If we don't go willingly they'll move the rest of the jobs to other lands because their one God is PROFIT.
One thing that comes with getting richer is the desire to have it your way 100% of the time. This fantasy fuels rich Texans and gun nuts from all over. If some son of a bitch stands in your way....shoot em! If some Yankee from DC tries to order you around.....shoot em! Don't Mess With Texas covers a hell of a lot more than just littering.
Then you got the Tea Bagger mentality combining both the above running on the slogan, I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK! The country they're talking about involves no taxes, no help for anyone other than their kind and armed Minutemen guarding the border of their yards, wards, city, county, congressional district, state, and country......shooting everyone who isn't a white Christian property owner of some means. How 1860 of you people!
I fear our country coming apart. I'm too old to fortify my house and yard. I've about forgot how to fire my own guns and I don't know a damn thing about raising my own food. But I worry our country has become too diseased to be cured. Bad things happen and Americans sit on their hands. Cut off our cable or double our taxes and there'd still be no angry mob in the streets. Our phenomenal successes after WWII took all the lead out of our national pencil. We got no bone structure! We're shopping, TV watching jellyfish.
But the forces of evil in America are strong and they intend to keep grabbing whatever they want and FK You! So we're in as much trouble today as we were in 1860 and add 3 bankrupting wars we're losing to the mix. The only arrow points straight down. Not good, not good at all.
"Let's take them and turn their children and grand children's children into free slaves, and call it minimum wage."
Hmmm. In the USA, no one is forcing anyone to work. You can CHOOSE to work for minimum wage or not. I worked for minimum wage before I graduated from HS and went to college. I then CHOSE to get an education and enter the professional working arena, in which I CHOSE to go back to school and further my education. If you don't want to work for minimum wage in the USA, then you must CHOOSE to make good decisions. I am sure there are some circumstances out of the norm for this scenario, but I would bet 9/10 if you are older and making minimum wage, then you just are not trying that hard.
Sorry if you are making minimum wage and all, but if you are 25+ and still making minimum wage, then you made poor CHOICES somewhere along the way. Folks we can't continue to just give everything away for nothing earned.
Don't know if he read the aforementioned books, but DBI is really, really close to the mark. It's not about the slaves -- even the abolitionists of teh 1850s and 1860s cared much for blacks, with most assuming they would be sent back to Africa or something once they weren't slaves any more (See "Liberia") -- but it was all about having the Right Folks (the southern planter "aristocracy") in charge of everything.
I don't care how many and what choices they make, some people will always make minimum wage.
We're all dealt a hand when we're born. No matter how skillfully someone plays their hand, if they've got a 7 high the odds are stacked against them and if they're born with a full house, the odds are with them.
Ergo, if the person with the full house is equal in skill to the person with the 7 high, the person with the 7 high will always lose.
Arguing that people who are born with losing hands choose to lose is equivalent to saying that people who are born wealthy chose to be wealthy.
Sure, choices are influential, but personally my success at life I will admit has been through dumb luck. Meeting the right person at the right time. Luck is a far greater factor in success that most successful people will admit, because it takes away their basis for lording it over the poor.
"We're all dealt a hand when we're born. No matter how skillfully someone plays their hand, if they've got a 7 high the odds are stacked against them and if they're born with a full house, the odds are with them."
"Arguing that people who are born with losing hands choose to lose is equivalent to saying that people who are born wealthy chose to be wealthy."
Tell that to Bill Clinton and Mike Beebe. I'm sure they would both agree with you.
"In the USA, no one is forcing anyone to work. You can CHOOSE to work for minimum wage or not." Sure, nobody is forcing you to eat or to sleep in a bed instead of under the bridge.
Take a cup of Borderer ideology, add 1/2 cup of Horatio Alger, mix in Social Darwinism until morally righteous, then bask in the glow.
Thanks, Guy Lancaster. Great stuff. The argument that the Feds are degrading some by granting equality to others has a modern ring to it.
That's about the whole thing in a nut shell Arkansas Panic, the only thing we want from these less fortunate is go and defend us, lose your life, limbs, and sanity for us who think we are in the click.
You think Clinton was born just an ordinary average guy, with average intelligence, average charisma, average ambition, average everything? Clinton got dealt a winning hand, genetically.
Or, it could be that the Arkansas public school system took a person with an average IQ and educated them until it was genius-level. I had no idea that you could simply choose to be smarter than 99% of the population. That's pretty cool. I had no idea that you could simply chose to be president and viola'! Dreams come true.
Hey, I've got an idea. I dare you to be President. Starting right now, make the right choices and soon you'll be on Air Force One. Or, if that's not your liking, I dare you to be a brain surgeon, astronaut or tenured professor at Harvard. Just make the right choices, that's all there is to it.
Q: How many ADD folks does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Hey! Let's ride bikes!
"Hey, I've got an idea. I dare you to be President. Starting right now, make the right choices and soon you'll be on Air Force One. Or, if that's not your liking, I dare you to be a brain surgeon, astronaut or tenured professor at Harvard. Just make the right choices, that's all there is to it."
You are missing the point. I chose my profession and like it. I am by no means a genius or even a 4.0 student. I had good grades in HS, college, have worked hard, and am living proof that if you work hard, you can basically do what you want.
"You think Clinton was born just an ordinary average guy, with average intelligence, average charisma, average ambition, average everything? Clinton got dealt a winning hand, genetically."
I have not heard or read a story telling me otherwise. Do you have proof that he was dealt a winning hand genetically? Clinton is smart as hell, but he had a tough life coming up. There are alot of "geniuses" out there that are probably worthless and not successful because they don't work hard. Not all things are created equal, this much is true, however, we all have an equal chance. If you don't like where you work, quit. If you don't like where you live, move.
"Take a cup of Borderer ideology, add 1/2 cup of Horatio Alger, mix in Social Darwinism until morally righteous, then bask in the glow"
I can only speak for Americans that are actually legally here or are citizens. If you are in our country illegally, and someone did not force you into labor (example chinese sex industry) then if you are not getting a fair shake, who gives shit. You know the risks regarding working under false pretenses. You want to get paid fair, play by the rules.
I keep disagree with conseratives that most nosey people are conseratives telling people how to live in neighborhoods that restrict people from having certain items in there yards. Laws that inforced codes on people to live like a controlled society its like conserative communism where Lex Lethur concept where corperations rules and Superman tries to protect society from its evil overtones .
"You are missing the point. I chose my profession and like it. I am by no means a genius or even a 4.0 student. I had good grades in HS, college, have worked hard, and am living proof that if you work hard, you can basically do what you want."
blah blah blah
I do not doubt or argue that people can make their own fate with hard work BUT I am sick to death of people like you not admitting that luck plays just as big of a chance in the life we get. Right place, right time...being born into a working/middle class family who cares....winning the genetic lottery by being either brilliant or good looking.....right teachers...good school instead of the crappy one next district over....making that right turn instead of the left....not getting seriously ill or having to care for seriously ill parents....making the right friends....choosing that job instead of the other...
BTW, thanks Max for adding the Larry Wilmore bit...hilarious....every Southerner should have to watch it.
"I do not doubt or argue that people can make their own fate with hard work BUT I am sick to death of people like you not admitting that luck plays just as big of a chance in the life we get. Right place, right time...being born into a working/middle class family who cares....winning the genetic lottery by being either brilliant or good looking.....right teachers...good school instead of the crappy one next district over....making that right turn instead of the left....not getting seriously ill or having to care for seriously ill parents....making the right friends....choosing that job instead of the other..."
So everything in life is chance?
"So everything in life is chance?"
No, not completely, but to say that success is always due to only your own hard work is not true either.
Panic, Clinton and BeeBee would both agree it pays to have friends in high places. If Clinton would have been drafted, you might of never heard of him. It is called fate. But I was lucky enough to have been born prebabyboom. when a man could work at a hospital laundry 40 hours a week and support a family of four and save for a rainy day, when a H/S was quite a achievement, you could get a good job with the sweat of your brow. Back when the whole European and Japan industry was in shambles. When the US had the most oil reserves. Back when the We the People, stood for something, I Think.
APF: No, not everything is chance. Although being born into the lucky sperm club sure helps. Being born into a household of low intellect limited income sure does not help. Play the game Star Power sometime. The words of the Billie Holiday song come to mind, "them that's got, gets; them that don't, don't." The impact of wealth and breeding are far more deterministic than anything else you have mentioned. Play the Star Power game, it's a model of real life, not like we tend to idealize about the opportunities for upward mobility.
I will agree to disagree. I understand the fact of it's not what you know but who you know, but maintaining that takes hard work. Anywho, not everything in life is all about being in the right place at the right time. Plenty of room to boogie in the USA, while all of you slackers are bitching and complaining about how the world has been bought and paid for, I'll be climbing the ladder.
@APF: OK. And who's holding your ladder?
Look around at the thousands of skilled laborers whose jobs have gone overseas and who now are forced into working for whatever wages they can get just to feed their families. Then look at the thousands of completely unemployed. I suppose all of those hoboes during the Great Depression just made the wrong decision and decided to be bums looking for a handout.
Remember the Ph.D.s driving taxis after the space program was cut back?
I can tell you about university professors who went into low-wage positions when faculties were cut back and they didn't have marketable skills. I know of some who approached companies who wouldn't consider hiring them because they had no practical business experience.
I can tell you about college and seminary graduates who were reduced to working at low-paying jobs to support their families because there weren't enough churches to hire them.
You can blather on about "right choices" and "hard work" all you want to, but the reality is that right choices, good education, and hard work are not the only three determinants of how people wind up working and living in this country.
You can impose a theoretical vision of life in this country on your own brain, but don't be surprised when you discover that your fantasy has little similarity to reality.
I went to school with some kids who just couldn't grasp what we were being taught and flunked out during the first four years of grade school. Those kids evidently were no more capable of performing at expected intellectual levels than you are of composing music like Handel, playing piano like Van Cliburn, or running a business like Donald Trump.
I earned several academic degrees, but still could never master the coordination necessary to play a piano. My brain just isn't wired that way, although my mother's was, and I have children who are professional musicians. Different people's brains work different ways, so it is naive to conclude that anyone above 25 who has to work for minimum wage has to do so just because s/he didn't make the right decisions.
I'm blessed with a fair amount of manual dexterity, although not multi-finger coordination. But I know people who would be hard pressed to thread a needle and who couldn't hold a job on an assembly line. Education, decisions, and hard work are not the only determinants.
And, incidentally, if everyone in this country had the intelligence and had earned a university degree, someone would still have to change the sheets and vacuum the rooms at the local motel, and someone would still have to collect the garbage. Education is not the universal answer, any more than "making the right decisions."
There are a few Clintons and Beebes who escape the clutches of their birth and childhood, but the statistics show that the majority who are born into poverty never escape the clutches of poverty. And the success stories of those born to career criminals and crack hos are few and far between. But of course, they just didn't WANT anything better, and they failed to make the "right" decisions. Or so you conclude.
IMHO
While you are climbing the ladder, you need to believe that it's all your doing. Of course.
Once you have climbed as far as you want, or decided you don't want to climb any longer, then you'll be able to look back and get a perspective.
It's really all a moot point. Mathematically, upward mobility must decrease as the concentration of wealth increases. The fewer the people at the top, the fewer the people at the top.
Watch those ladders, some have rotten rungs. You do know what a ladder rung is? There is a old song about that called. How high did you go, before you finally crashed down?
I have known a lot of self made men and women, none of them were politicians. Because there is no self made politicians. I have been asked why I never got in politics? Because I can't lie with a straight face, is my answer. There is something about self made people, they have a genuine respect for those who didn't make it. That is the trouble today, there is not enough self made people. I'm not just talking about millionaire's, I have also rubbed shoulders with a lot of athletes, show people, educators, soldiers, ministers, in all walks of life. But what I guess the best advice is from a old Blue Eyes tune called, That's Life. Just look that up Arkansas Panic.
I feel sorry for most of you on here and your beat down sense of reality. That is why the left never wins, you don't have the right attitude. I used to believe in all the corrruption, conspiracy theories, etc. You know what it gets you at the end of the day? Nothing. So keep on thinking that the man is holding you back and he will.
@AFP: Insgtering that in your myopic view "the left never wins."
Enough said to stop reading right there.
"I used to believe in all the corrruption [sic], conspiracy theories, etc. You know what it gets you at the end of the day? Nothing."
Thus dismissing the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Civil War, two World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Movement, oh . . . why go on.
Nothing says Profound, nothing says Respect, nothing says Superior . . . like Glib, Shallow and Dismissive.
"I feel sorry for most of you on here and your beat down sense of reality. That is why the left never wins, you don't have the right attitude." -apf
While most of us don't consider these "left" (whatever the hell that is?), look at:
Wall Street Somewhat Re-regulation although the Lords of Greed aren't in jail
Healthcare
Repeal of DADT
Food Safety Act
Winding down (albeit too damn slow), the Bush wars of aggression
America starting to get soem respect again around the world
Not bad since what the right has given us:
-G W Bush
-2 unpaid for wars and an unpaid Medicare (so much for MBA government)
-a miltary ground down by too many deployments and no replacement of equipment
-a financial disaster because we don't have to worry about regulating capitalism
-total lack of any respect for America around the world
-another Republican recession (depression for too damn many)
-a financial disaster because we don't have to worry about regulating capitalism
-another Republican recession (depression for too damn many)
Tough to regulate people that steal. You can hammer them after the damage is done, but when they are pulling the wool over your eyes, it is tough to see what is going on.
I am a Clinton Supporter, however, i believe the subprime mortgage crisis started on his watch, by wanting all americans to own a home. You need renters as well as home owners.
I did not support Bush, so don't assume I am republican. Obama inherited a shit storm, however, he has been pretty worthless as a president so far. I doubt he will get elected to a second term unless Palin or Huckabee run against him. That being said:
"Winding down (albeit too damn slow), the Bush wars of aggression"
Why are we still in Afghanistan? What are we doing there? This has been a disaster so far on Obama's part. You have two corrupt governments that are A) unwilling to work with the US B) selling out our soldiers to the Taliban and other enemy troops. We should be exiting that country now. Either stop pussy footing around and bomb the hell out of the landscape over there or get out. Collateral damage sucks but so does war and lots of innocent bystanders get killed. You will never win a war by trying be PC. If you want to win, then get out of the military's way. And for god's sake, get JAG out of the military. Having to get a warrant to drop a bomb is stupid.
Healthcare? Seriously? The whole Obamacare is probably about to get shredded in the Supreme Court. How is that a victory?
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