Ah fresh scabs of wars gone long ago

[nadinbrzezinski]

Many a times we have heard the criticism of why Europeans could hold a grudge over 1500 years... or why we have grudges going in the Middle East ... well that little fight has gone on for a LONG TIME. In fact, we look at tribal societies were the sins of the fathers are passed to the sons. As the risk of speaking something that may be a heressy for some... the US has that. It is called the Civil War.

Recent threads have pointed this to me beyond a shadow of a doubt. The war is over 150 years old, but it is an ever present scab, and a fresh one, for some folks. What is the percentage of folks still re fighting? Good question, but it still there. At least to me it shows how non-special the US is when compared to other nations we at times are critical about.

Now truth be told... I don't expect this scab to heal... again given the history of other major fights going on and on and on for hundreds of years this one is a young one. The only problem with it is that we have history, the actual events of what happened. The view of the victor, the view of the defeated... and none of them are the same. We coincide on dates, but even on terms used we do not agree...

Oh and now at the risk of angering some folks, in my view the War was about a caste system and the maintenance of such. And the last 150 years have been a fight, for some, to keep that caste system as intact as possible. It is about social control, and many of the patterns we saw leading to that Civil War... well the scab is now fully opened, and bleeding, and yes the ghosts of that past are walking amongst us.

Oh and if you want to say this is a yankee view... whatever, or a city view... again whatever. But hey, the current language of secession and tenth amendment has not really been seen in 150 years, I just hope we don't have to refight it... and if we do, it will not be gray v blue, but some of the elements of that long fought war will be part of this witch's brew. It just goes to proof Santayanna's famous dictum... those who refuse to learn from history... are condemned to repeat it. Of course Toynbee and others saw the cycles in history and we are, in my vew, entering a very violent period...

Now let me reach for the asbestos.

Popcorn is over there, as well as other treats.

[Rick Myers]

1. Excellent post!!!

And spot on! I feel something bad this way comes...

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Something wicked cometh this way

...

Can we go back to normal times? We haven't been in any normal time for ten years at least.

[cali]

48. when have there been "normal" times?

The fifties when McCarthyism raged and apartheid gripped the country? How about the sixties with its spate of assasinations and the social ruptures that saw rioting in many American cities? The seventies? hardly.

There is no such thing as a "normal" time.

[TxRider]

2. Bahh, there's nothing like the civil war precursor going on in the U.S.

And most folks never even think of the civil war unless someone brings it up.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. It is not MOST folks that concern me

and this is not about MOST folks

This is about those for whom the scabs are still fresh and bleeding

[TxRider]

9. Wake me up when they are more than silly fringe

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. And who do you think starts civil wars? The MAJORITY?

It is the fringes that feel they have no other way to achieve their goals.

This is a great diservice to the teaching of History in the US.

The people who went for the American War of Independence were about 1\3 of the population, hardly a majority. The South also broke with a MINORITY of the population.

I do wish people were taught these little factoids. Oh and if you start studying civil wars in OTHER countries you will see the same pattern. Majorities do not engage in them. It is the fringe.

So I won't wake you up, events will...

[TxRider]

13. You think they are 1/3 of the population? ROFL

I don't need to be taught any factoids I already know.

I'd gladly bet cash there won't be a civil war in the next decade.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. And you miss it, it is always the FRINGE

and you do not need 1\3 to create a lot of hate and discontent.

[Kaleva]

30. That 1/3 included a majority of the most influential men.

None of the 13 original colonies remained loyal to the Crown because the men in power in each of the colonies decided in favor of revolution.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. Ane the same happened in the south, and we have that pattern

repeating now wiht the 10th amendment movement. The parallels in that respect to that era with our current governors are scary. We may make jokes of good hair... but you get the point.

[Kaleva]

32. The 10th amendment movement has bi-partisan support

A resolution was recently passed in the Michigan state Senate unanimously affirming Michigan’s sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not enumerated and granted to the federal government.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Yes and... that is my point

the movement is there... and it is following a similar pattern.

States Rights... why does this sound familiar to students of history and those who can see a pattern?

[Kaleva]

34. There are differences though

The secessionist sentiment in the early to mid-1800's was restricted to one region, the deep South, and was primarily centered on one issue, that being slavery. Neither is true regarding the 10th Amendment movement. Also, Democrats back then were either pro-slavery or sympathetic to the slave states while Republicans were generally opposed to slavery. So there was a fundamental split between the two parties while the 10 Amendment movement has both bipartisan support and bi-partisan opposition.

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. Of course there are differences

history does not quite repeat itself all the way. But patterns do...

Also you forget Republicans split from the whig party that was even loonier than the democrats insofar as slavery is concerned... they were the Party of No by the way.

[Kaleva]

60. The Whig Party split into two because of the slavery issue

The pro-slavery faction joined the Democrats while the abolitionists joined the Republican Party. Today, the 10th Amendment movement affect both major parties and I see no 3rd party rising from the ashes of either of the two.

[nadinbrzezinski]

61. Depends on what happens in 2010

but we may see the GOP going down in flames.

As I said, history never repeats itself 100% just the patterns do.

The 10th amendment movement is very worrisome though and the PATTERN you are seeing is literally conservatives v progressives, or urban vs rural... but it is a pattern

Hell, even Toynbee (and other) major historians saw the inevitable patterns of history, and why it does in the end repeat itself... just not act by act.

[cali]

50. no we don't and in these threads you provide exactly zero evidence

to back up your claims.

[nadinbrzezinski]

51. Posting Guidelines

Civility: Treat other members with respect. Do not post personal attacks against other members of this discussion forum.

[Kaleva]

62. Taking issue with what you wrote does not constitue a personal attack

[nadinbrzezinski]

63. It is a very long history

and she is not only snippy to me... trust me the history goes back several years.

I have tried quite a bit of things to keep civil. At this point anything she posts to me is not civil. It is a history... and I will leave it at that.

[Kaleva]

65. Okay. Didn't know you two had a long history.

[cali]

49. No, the silly fringe did not start the U.S. Civil War.

[Name removed]

52. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Midway Rebel]

53. Respectfully, I think that many, both North and South, believe that John Brown

was probably on the fringe-y side. Not saying John started the war but abolitionists, once upon a time, were a progressive fringe group.

[Strong Atheist]

56. Welcome to DU!

:toast:

[nadinbrzezinski]

57. Welcome to DU

:thumbsup:

[The Midway Rebel]

66. Hey Thanks!

I lurked for over a year, just started posting last week, got insulted by a few regulars and now finally, a welcome. It is starting to feel like home!

:D

[nadinbrzezinski]

68. It is home...

to many of us. It is also a very dysfunctional family.

:-)

[The Midway Rebel]

70. oh yeah...sez you!

:P

[cali]

59. That's certainly a good point, and Brown was instrumental

but no, in New England for instance, abolitionists were not fringe in the sense that the birthers are. They were part of the mainstream fabric and represented mainstream sentiment.

[The Midway Rebel]

64. I do not think that Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglas

were considered "mainstream" in the 1850's. Oterwise, I doubt they would have been labled as radicals by Northern papers and completely ignored in the South.

[cali]

67. Stowe was most certainly not considered fringe. Indeed, by

the 1850s abolition was the mainstream position in virtually all of New England and much of the midwest. Douglas, by the way, was celebrated by far more than the "fringe". Most men (and the few women) of American letters were strongly anti-slavery by the 1850s. Stowe was celebrated for her novel, not shunned for it.

[The Midway Rebel]

69. Stowe's book was popular, Douglas was known among persons of letters...

does not equal abolition as the "mainstream position" in "virtually all of New England" and certainly not in the Midwest. A great many Northerners were against abolition based on the same racist attitudes that allowed human bondage to exist in the South. The abolitionists were met with mob violence, heckled, printing presses were thrown into rivers and their books and writings were censored. Not to mention that many early abolitionist were women that also wanted universal suffrage which was viewed as being even more on the fringe than abolitionism.

[cali]

71. Abolition was most certainly mainstream in New England by the 1850s

there really isn't any debate about that. Of course, there were those who still supported slavery in New England, but they were a distinct MINORITY by the 1850s. Of course the view of abolitionists in the South was one of hostility, but we're talking about New England.

[The Midway Rebel]

72. Respectfully, I disagree

But, I am opend minded and willing to continue my research in the area. I love to learn new things!

You claim that "Abolition was most certainly mainstream in New England by the 1850s" seems to fly in the face of the violent resitance they encountered and struggled under, the Dred Scott case of 1857 and the fact that Lincoln had to draft an army to suppress an armed insurrection by 1861. Technically and politically speaking, abolition wasn't even an issue in the war until the Emancipation Proclaimation (though morally it had been an issue since 1604). I am still studying this. I will let you know if I find more evidence to support either of our claims. Got any good links or book recommendations?

:patriot:

[Libertas1776]

3. I don't see

a Civil War 2 happening any time soon. Our corporate overlords wouldn't allow it, its bad for business. Unless of course, the corporations take sides....:yoiks:

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Read on the ten years that led to the Civil war

concentrate on the days after Lincoln's election.

This has nothing to do with the corporations. Hell, that Civil War was not something the corporations of the day wanted either.

Fact is the last people who want then, but can never prevent them are corporations.

[AllentownJake]

41. The Euopeans wanted it

The British and the French were joyful over our civil war.

[nadinbrzezinski]

43. Ok... I know that some Mexican Historians have actually written on this

so it is not that fringe... in fact I have read the historiography of the French Intervention, and the CSA, but they also had advisors, or observers on both sides.

But one thing is to celebrate, another to push it.

Not even the mexican historians who have seen the papers that seem to link CSA and Napoleon III go that far. And trust me a few would love to... I mean blaming the whole Guerra de Reforma and Juarez mess on France and the Americans could make life oh so much easier on ideological grounds.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. When I went to high school in Georgia

(Savannah High School) my history teacher refused to let anyone in the class call it the Civil War. I called it that without thinking about it one time and she really got wound up and emotional. We had to call it the War Between The States.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. And that is what I mean about scabs

I grew up in Mexico... so we called it the American Civil War...

Until I came to the US, and took US History in College did I even learn that there were two names for it...

So my view of it is to a point a distant event that happened a while ago. But your experience is one that marks to the scabs being there, alive and well.

[Fumesucker]

18. When I was growing up in the fifties and sixties in the deep South..

There were a couple of more names..

The War of Northern Aggression.

The Recent Unpleasantness (I only heard that one a few times and people could have been snarking and I was too young to realize it).

[madeline_con]

17. I thought you were going to say "The War of Northern Aggression"

:eyes:

[Libertas1776]

11. To most, it seems like 150 years ago

might as well be 1500. And yet, there are still subtle little reminders about how recent its affects are still being felt. As a matter of fact, it is my understanding that as of Jan of 2009, the US Govt's VA still pays out benefits etc. to at least two children of Civil War veterans (granted, I am sure they are quite advanced in age)

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. The problem is that for a few

and I wonder what is the percentage, 150 years ago could be yesterday. Why I mentioned about the scabs.

There is a famous bridge in Istambul. It has the remains of folks who died over 900 ago. People still remember it as if it was yesterday. Some scars never heal.

[TxRider]

14. Especially before modern times, and in closed societies.

But our society is much more mobile, and much less closed.

Half the people in my state are not from my state, that kind of thing changes the picture entirely.

It makes culture evolve, and lessens the impact of old scars.

Families no longer live generations only in the same place here.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. But some do, and the scabs are still there

[Gulftrout]

15. 3 sides to every story

You've got the Yankee side to the story, the Rebel side and what really happened. None of us were there, so we have to draw our own conclusions from the histories written by the folks who were and anecdotal stories passed from generation on down. Some people read the stuff in their high school history books and accept that white-washed crap as gospel truth. Sad.
What makes the study of the "Civil War" or "The War Between the States" so interesting is that it was an American war. The what ifs are endless.
Unfortunately people that don't study history and pretend to be something they're not get elected President. The lesson lost on W was that, if you are perceived to be an invader people will resent you and fight you. If W really had been from Texas (yes, we were part of the South, we sent the "Texas Brigade" 1000 miles east to fight) he would've known that.
What is scary for elitists from the northeast (the ones that do a little research}, that despite the disparity in men and materials, the South did have their chances to win their "War of Independence".
Over simplistic explanations of this War (Caste System?) do a disservice to the memory of the soldiers who died, Northern and Southern.

[Confusious]

16. How is it whitewashed?

I'd like to know. Was the fight about States rights?

That's just an example

"South did have their chances to win their "War of Independence"."

Yea, but every day that it went on, was less and less of a chance that they would win. Time was on the north's side.

Not only that, but the foundation on which it laid itself was cracked and broken as soon as it was thought up. The south died ( and good riddance) because of "States Rights". Every state Governor because a power unto himself, and getting supplies from one state to help another was, most times, like pulling teeth. One even complained that Jefferson Davis was acting like King George, not once, but during the entire civil war.

[BlooInBloo]

20. I'm not sure why you're even bothering. They WANT to be wrong. It's what the revel in.

[Gulftrout]

35. The typical rank and file

Confederate soldier thought he was fighting a "War of Independence". That's just one example of what was left out of my history class in high school.
The South needed to turn the War into a stalemate, they didn't have to actually "win it". Had Atlanta held, there's your stalemate, and Lincoln loses the election in 1864. Of course that didn't happen, Davis replaces Gen. Johnston with morphine-addicted Gen. John Bell Hood. Hood single handedly hastens the end of the war with bad generalship at Atlanta and Franklin Tennessee.
Read Company H, by Sam R. Watkins for a better history of what really happened 1861-1865. I'm gonna believe a soldiers version of the war before I believe the Yankee retro-history horse-shit I was fed in school.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Mine is not even the Yankee version

and I got enough distance both geographically and in the heart to see what we had.

You think slavery was not a caste system? I suggest you read a definition of it.

[Selatius]

36. Sorry, but slavery was a form of a caste system. Even as a Mississippian, I recognize that.

Part of the Southern identity in those days was the notion that Blacks were lower than Whites. When people stratify themselves like that, that's indicative of a society with at least two castes. In our case, the lower caste was the Blacks, and everybody else belonged to a higher caste even though the economic reality indicated that poor Whites had more in common with Blacks than they did with the extremely small number of plantation owners who ran everything at the expense of everybody else.

[Raineyb]

44. Slavery by definition IS a caste system.

So what the hell are you talking about? Are you questioning that slavery was a caste system? If you don't believe that it is then are you willing to put yourself in the lowest of the classes (that is in the role of slave) as you apparently think there is no caste and as such it wouldn't matter which group you were in.

:wtf:

[BlooInBloo]

19. I'm all for ripping the scab off. We'll win again if we need to, and rightly so....

It's people's responsibility to each other to not suck. It is NOT people's responsibility to just not say anything when they suck,

[TxRider]

22. Sure why not...

Only 700,000 people died the first time, we could probably kill off a couple of million if we did it again...

[BlooInBloo]

23. Indeed. I wish the south hadn't started the war as well. Glad we're in agreement on that.

And I look forward to the south not starting another one. I'm certain you're doing everything you can to prevent it, by talking to all of the race-war people down there.

[TxRider]

46. I would if I knew any...

But I don't.

[Odin2005]

21. Finished reading "The 4th Turning" I take it?

As the curse goes, "may you live in interesting times"... :yoiks:

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Thanks and no, actually I haven't

a couple posts led me to that conclusion... I knew of it, but hey.

I see things like reacting like nuts to a post on the WWW as a symptom.

[proteus_lives]

24. No comparison.

We're no where near the setting or feeling of 1850-1860. The media is blowing this wayyyyy out of portion. I know tons of Republicans and Democrats who disagree passionately on the issues but they aren't about to start fighting about it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. It's not the tons, it's the few

those are the ones that worry me. Those are the ones that may engage in all kinds of nastiness.

[Selatius]

37. Look, the US is going to fracture eventually. It'll be over economic lines exacerbated by...

cultural fault lines. People who live in Mississippi tend to hold attitudes that are different from people who live in Massachusetts, for instance, but that in itself isn't a threat. What's a threat is economic issues that would divide people. What makes it bad is that the elites who have the most to lose if the economic reality changes would do everything under the sun to forestall change, up to and including inciting insurrection or overthrowing the government and instituting a dictatorship, like Franco's Spain.

Personally, I think the US will disintegrate like the Soviet Union in the long-run. It is a bankrupt imperium that is losing the ability to maintain its worldwide military garrisons that bolster American interests abroad and enrich a small few contractors here at home.

[nadinbrzezinski]

42. I agree wiht you, and I'd guess anywhere from five to seven successor

states in the Territorial US. And I think that now that the empire's collapse hastens it is beginning.

[HamdenRice]

38. Point of info: The Civil War did not end 150 years ago. It ended about 35 years ago & is still fresh

The war only ended if you think of the war as being the military engagement between Grant's and Lee's armies.

War is the continuation of politics by other means, and the Civil War was a political, class/caste and economic war.

Most of the issues of the Civil War were not settled, or they were settled and then unsettled in the 1870s.

The class/caste aspect of the war did not end until the Civil Rights Movement eliminated the most egregious forms of the southern caste system. Even the relationship between states and the federal government remained ambiguous until most vestiges of "states rights" were eroded during the 1960s. All the southern right wing talk about the Civil War is really talk about the Civil Rights Movement.

That loss is still fresh in the minds of many white southerners.

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. And a few were not settled 35 years ago either

but that points as to why the scabs have remained quite fresh.

Now I'll ask how the scabs in Istambul that are 900 years old can still be picked, but that's another story.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

55. When Faubus sent the Arkansas National Guard to Little Rock to block black students

from entering schools and President Eisenhower responded by sending in the 101st Airborne and federalizing the Arkansas National Guard, that standoff created another fresh scab.

[nadinbrzezinski]

58. And that one is recent enough that there are people

alive today who were alive then.

[AllentownJake]

45. It's not like it was back than

You had two different economies going on. The South was exporting mainly agricultural products and the north was experiencing the industrial revolution in large part. The corporations in the North sought trade policies that favored their businesses and the South since they had a smaller industrial base had no problem trading with the European nations.

We really were two totally different countries.

Now not so much.

In addition I have lived in PA, CT, and IN. I have seen confederate flags in all three states and I'm pretty sure their ancestors were not confederate soldiers.

We have an ideological war going on right now. In my state of PA the Republican Party will nominate Pat Toomey who is to the right of Rick Santorum. The reason being is that outside the cities and their suburbs, the rural areas of my state have more in common with Mississippi than they do with Philadelphia.

What you have now is more of an Urban vs. Rural fight going on.

[The Midway Rebel]

47. Good points! I would add, when studying the events that led to the American Civil War

it is interesting to note that the first rip in the fabric of our nation came from the churches. The four leading Christian denominations split over the issue of human bondage about 5 years before the first shots were fired at Ft. Sumter.


A split in politics, economies, societies and finally religion. The war was inevitable then, we are nowhere near that now.

[nadinbrzezinski]

54. History will never repeat itself 100% thankfully

what you are seeing are patterns. And I agree with you, this is not the south... or limited to the south. Hell, my neighborhood has a chapter of the KKK, the Knights of Columbus and the Nazi Party, and some folks also fly the blood flag.

I'm not in the south.

But the idea of caste and a race superior to another is a similar pattern.

And we are seeing a coarsening of language and all that. Oh and for some it IS about the civil war, whether family participated in it or not. The Confederate Flag is a racial pride thing.