Still fighting
The horrible legacy of the 1960s is making the horrible legacy of the 1860s even worse. Social history before the 1960s might have been neglected, but like everything in the 1960s, it was taught in excess. Drugs and free love have, in proportion, been curtailed (yea for the former and nay for the latter). However, social history still dominates and misinforms us every day. Social history is dwelled upon because it is supposed to be inclusive in our overrated “multicultural” society. Social history is in many ways more racist than teaching the “nuts-and-bolts” of political, military and scientific history because it implies that the new comers had nothing to offer in those fields. Well if the social historian is supposed to unite us all they are in for a surprise, at least I hope.
Ever since the 1990s when the old NAACP coalition was falling apart due to Northern whites disapproval of affirmative action quotas, the antiquated black leadership was looking for an issue to unite them. They found it in the meaning of the old Confederacy. The redrawing of flags, renaming of schools and soon the removal of Confederate monuments have extended the life of an antiquated alliance to the detriment of everyone, just like NATO. Now, as evident in the liberal propagandist publication of “U.S. News and World Report,” Civil War battlefields will start teaching the “causes” of the Civil war. The mere fact that information at a military battlefield should be about the “nuts-and-bolts” history of what happened there instead of why is proof enough that this is a PC move with no real academic value. Political correctness is too nice a term for the perpetrators of this offense; cultural cleansing is what I prefer.
Supporters of the South (not apologists for I apologize for nothing) have in many ways set them selves up for this fight due to their denial of slavery as a cause of the Civil War. It was by far the dominant reason, but not for reasons Yankees proclaim. Slavery was such a dominant issue that it cannot be viewed in a single dimension. Slavery had economic, political, social, and moral facets that cannot be combined into one issue called “slavery.” However, it is the moral issue (thanks to the 1960’s) that has become the meaning of slavery. This is a result of purely political reasons that unfortunately have become the modern meaning of history and other academic fields. History may never be objective, but it does not need to have political meaning for contemporary society. If the revisionists win (which they probably will) let it be known that their “findings” represent the views of one aspect of society – not the history of the whole nation.
The South was a slave-based society, as was the North. The only difference was that North found a way to get around it -war. The North got its cake and ate it, too. It had the benefit of cheap slave-produced cotton to fund its industry while never having to have the “Particular Institution” in their backyard. Textiles were the first major industry to develop and it is difficult to see that happening without cheap cotton. The British also have blood on their hands for they were the biggest importers of Southern cotton. Southern slavery was a major factor in the early industrial revolution. The North benefited and perpetuated the slave system and shares the blame.
The next myth about moral superiority comes from the misconception that the slave issue was a moral issue. To self-righteous 1960s propagandists it might be, but to the average Northern solider it was not. Lincoln had to proclaim wildly that slave freedom was not a goal or the Mid-West was in danger of not participating in the war. The Emancipation Proclamation had a demoralizing effect to the Union army and was directed to the elites of Europe. In short a Union Solider was not fighting to free a slave, but to prevent that slave from taking his job. Lincoln wanted tariffs to protect northern industry from Britain and thus needed to eliminate the free trade South. Lincoln even wanted to return the free slaves to Africa and was against interracial marriage.
The North’s real motives for fighting the war are glossed over in the “U.S. News” article. However, the meaning for the article is clear: propaganda. Comparing the Confederacy to Nazi Germany is stupid. Nazism was mass murder organized by a government with a racial ideology that had no established historical foundation. Slavery had a long historical foundation, and American racism never reached the duration or intensity of the Nazis’. The propagandists tried changing the meaning of the Alamo from why the heroes died (delaying the enemy in the face of certain death) to how the heroes died (either captured then executed or suicide). This was done to try and “integrate” Mexicans into Texas history. How fair is it to “integrate” people for a blatantly motivated political history lesson. The propagandist may win, but it will be through raw force and will result in replacing one group of “main stream” society with another instead of integration; just look at how home schooling has increased. Don’t give me that “making one angry makes one think” crap, propagandists want to do to the South what was done to Germany, make their history disgusting and then reinvent their society. Not without a fight, in which other American heroes will take a fall. In the end we may lose the war but win the peace, just like last time.
On an aside, the troll Janet Reno lost the Florida governor’s race. As a partisan Republican I am sad, but as an American I am disgusted that such a person was ever considered. Reno was involved in many Clinton cover-ups, but the worst was Waco. The mass-murder committed at Waco represents the grossest abuse of police power in living memory. Methylene-chloride was mixed with CS powder and pumped into a bunker filled with children while delta force agents fired at them from the outside, all for a publicity stunt that went wrong. The fact that Reno is not in jail is a troubling aspect of our society and how it gets information.
