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I think it's kinda cute (but mostly sickening) that far left ideologues and far right ideologues can at least come together and agree that the Civil War was not

I think it's kinda cute (but mostly sickening) that far left ideologues and far right ideologues can at least come together and agree that the Civil War was not actually about slavery (despite every fact contradicting that view).

chrisco255 6y ago
I think the reasons for the elites who initiated the war and the people who actually fought the war were quite different, but that is so often the case in world history.
sudosysgen 6y ago
I don't know anyone on the left that thinks that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. That doesn't mean that they think that it wasn't just about slavery - because it wasn't just about slavery, and even less just about the moral issues of slavery. When people say that the US hasn't confronted its legacy of slavery and genocide, they mean things like personality cults of people that owned slaves, institutional racism - that persisted a hundred years after the civil war, not recognizing that there was a genocide of natives, and so on. It's perfectly consistent to say that the Civil War was mainly about slavery (and, of course, also for economic reasons as an extension of that) and to say that the US still hasn't fully confronted its origins of slavery. Also, there is still a lot of people in the US that are sympathetic to the Confederacy, even amongst the government - the Civil War didn't even go all the way.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  That's because the identification with the Confederacy is culturally aligned with traditional rural southerners. They're not pro-slavery. They simply have ancestors that are buried with a Confederate gravestone. The Civil War was the deadliest war in U.S. history. It rocked the South for 100 years. The South was completely wrecked, economically, so much so that the Great Depression was almost status quo for southerners. In the same way that we realize that World War II was indirectly caused by excessive sanctions on Germany after World War I, which caused a lot of spite and misery, the South had to endure a similar situation in post-war America. It was about slavery for the elites. It wasn't about slavery for the poor rural southerners who died in the war. If you're curious, here's an interview with a veteran of the Civil War recorded in 1947: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfqIa4dDxrw&t=21s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfqIa4dDxrw&t=21s
blackrock 6y ago
I thought the Civil War was about States’ Rights. The right for each State to decide to have slaves, and to classify black people as subhumans that must be whipped and lynched regularly.

chrisco255 6y ago

I think the reasons for the elites who initiated the war and the people who actually fought the war were quite different, but that is so often the case in world history.

sudosysgen 6y ago

I don't know anyone on the left that thinks that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. That doesn't mean that they think that it wasn't just about slavery - because it wasn't just about slavery, and even less just about the moral issues of slavery. When people say that the US hasn't confronted its legacy of slavery and genocide, they mean things like personality cults of people that owned slaves, institutional racism - that persisted a hundred years after the civil war, not recognizing that there was a genocide of natives, and so on. It's perfectly consistent to say that the Civil War was mainly about slavery (and, of course, also for economic reasons as an extension of that) and to say that the US still hasn't fully confronted its origins of slavery. Also, there is still a lot of people in the US that are sympathetic to the Confederacy, even amongst the government - the Civil War didn't even go all the way.

chrisco255 6y ago
That's because the identification with the Confederacy is culturally aligned with traditional rural southerners. They're not pro-slavery. They simply have ancestors that are buried with a Confederate gravestone. The Civil War was the deadliest war in U.S. history. It rocked the South for 100 years. The South was completely wrecked, economically, so much so that the Great Depression was almost status quo for southerners. In the same way that we realize that World War II was indirectly caused by excessive sanctions on Germany after World War I, which caused a lot of spite and misery, the South had to endure a similar situation in post-war America. It was about slavery for the elites. It wasn't about slavery for the poor rural southerners who died in the war. If you're curious, here's an interview with a veteran of the Civil War recorded in 1947: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfqIa4dDxrw&t=21s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfqIa4dDxrw&t=21s

blackrock 6y ago

I thought the Civil War was about States’ Rights. The right for each State to decide to have slaves, and to classify black people as subhumans that must be whipped and lynched regularly.