Pikadon

[Tiassa]

Pikadon

It probably wouldn't hurt so much if we weren't so damned anxious and determined to do it again.

I would very much like to believe it as a difficult decision to do this thing, but it was not. Nor will it be when we do it again.

I knew it would be strange touring sacred ground with a bunch of atheists, but I had a moment, the other day, when I found myself declaring to my own mother that the reason I don't hate white people is because they are my family, full stop.

Being here, right now, is kind of like the moment I had the other day at Tōdai-ji, when all my traveling companions could say was stuff like, "Wow, it's big." Or, "Oooh, look at that". Or, "Pretty impressive, eh?"

Which kind of misses the point. I think. I mean, why do atheists want to spend that much money traveling to Japan in order to tour sacred spaces?

Never mind. Beside the point.

Sort of.

I took a few minutes tonight, on my own, just trying to get over it.

I'm an American; it shouldn't feel this way. Yet it's also true that I have bled for the Japanese because that's how it goes. That half of me is defining because of white supremacism.

Which, in turn, shouldn't mean a lot in 2017.

But it does, because here I am, and a whole bunch of this has been weird because the whole point, apparently, has been to be impressed by the funny stuff that these funny people do, and isn't that funny?

Then again, I was thirty-six when I finally learned who Tsutomu Yamaguchi was. Yeah, that's what it's like growing up in "America".

You can hit us with two atomic bombs, and still fail to kill us.

Whatever.

In the face of irreverence, I took a few minutes for reverence.

And one thing that I just can't shake is the point of how badly so many Americans want to nuke something.

And to some degree I wish I could say I hope it's their own damn houses, but that's the point: Never again, because it never should have happened in the first place.

And maybe this place I was never supposed to be wouldn't hurt so goddamn much if I didn't know how much Americans are just itching to do it again.

 

[Tiassa]

Pikadon Vista

On the upside, this is the view from the seventh floor.

That much I can appreciate without reserve.

 

[sculptor]

fyi
Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived both atomic bombs dropped on Japan

 

[sculptor]

Simply put:
"War" is state sanctioned mass murder.

There has never been a good war nor a bad peace.

 

[Tiassa]

There has never been a good war nor a bad peace

I tend to agree, Eugene M. Jerome notwithstanding, as to the first part.

But what do you, I, or anyone else mean by peace?

There is no good war, true; there is no bad peace–okay, explain that to the ghosts of how many American slaves. I don't have a good answer for the latter. I can't answer that many dead Jews without a better definition of peace. What am I supposed to tell every woman in American history? Or every indigenous tribal American?

Looking around the world, today and throughout history, the problem with no bad peace arises in how we define peace.

And, in truth, at the point I can say no bad peace I wonder if I'm also admitting there is no peace.

 

[sculptor]

Revisionist history and other lies suck.

civil war: Apr 12, 1861 – May 9, 1865
emancipation proclamation(which freed nobody)(The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are, and henceforward shall be free".)- January 1, 1863, ( one year and 9 months into the war when the south was still winning)

The war was started over unfair tariffs voted in by the congress controlled by the industrialized northern states.

The emancipation proclamation wasn't for the slaves, it was an attempt to weaken the economy of the rebellious states. The emancipation proclamation was just a happy bit of collateral damage.

And was without the force of law until the 14th amendment--- July 9, 1868,

When lies become "truths", danger increases exponentially.

 

[Tiassa]

I always loathed that pro-slavery American tradition.

The question was the nature of peace, and you came up with the peevish postwar pro-slavery argument.

How telling.

 

[iceaura]

The war was started over unfair tariffs voted in by the congress controlled by the industrialized northern states.

The emancipation proclamation wasn't for the slaves, it was an attempt to weaken the economy of the rebellious states. The emancipation proclamation was just a happy bit of collateral damage.

Bullshit.
A lot of people just don't want to own up to the fact that the Confederacy was a great evil. Because that would have implications for its heirs.

And that's actually thread relevant. Because the peace of the slave States of the US from 1830 to 1860 was a bad peace. The Civil War was an improvement - the world was a better place for it, everybody who survived was better off afterwards, and quite possibly better off during it.

 

[sculptor]

As early as the Revolutionary War, the South primarily produced cotton, rice, sugar, indigo and tobacco. The North purchased these raw materials and turned them into manufactured goods. By 1828, foreign manufactured goods faced high import taxes. Foreign raw materials, however, were free of tariffs.

Thus the domestic manufacturing industries of the North benefited twice, once as the producers enjoying the protection of high manufacturing tariffs and once as consumers with a free raw materials market. The raw materials industries of the South were left to struggle against foreign competition.

Because manufactured goods were not produced in the South, they had to either be imported or shipped down from the North. Either way, a large expense, be it shipping fees or the federal tariff, was added to the price of manufactured goods only for Southerners. Because importation was often cheaper than shipping from the North, the South paid most of the federal tariffs.

Much of the tariff revenue collected from Southern consumers was used to build railroads and canals in the North. Between 1830 and 1850, 30,000 miles of track was laid. At its best, these tracks benefited the North. Much of it had no economic effect at all. Many of the schemes to lay track were simply a way to get government subsidies. Fraud and corruption were rampant.

With most of the tariff revenue collected in the South and then spent in the North, the South rightly felt exploited. At the time, 90% of the federal government's annual revenue came from these taxes on imports.

......................
Toward the end of the war, Lincoln made the conflict primarily about the continuation of slavery. By doing so, he successfully silenced the debate about economic issues and states' rights . The main grievance of the Southern states was tariffs. Although slavery was a factor at the outset of the Civil War, it was not the sole or even primary cause.
The Tariff of 1828, called the Tariff of Abominations in the South, was the worst exploitation. It passed Congress 105 to 94 but lost among Southern congressmen 50 to 3. The South argued that favoring some industries over others was unconstitutional.
...
The country experienced a period of lower tariffs and vibrant economic growth from 1846 to 1857. Then a bank failure caused the Panic of 1857. Congress used this situation to begin discussing a new tariff act, later called the Morrill Tariff of 1861. However, those debates were met with such Southern hostility that the South seceded before the act was passed.

The South did not secede primarily because of slavery. In Lincoln's First Inaugural Address he promised he had no intention to change slavery in the South. He argued it would be unconstitutional for him to do so. But he promised he would invade any state that failed to collect tariffs in order to enforce them. It was received from Baltimore to Charleston as a declaration of war on the South.

http://www.emarotta.com/protective-tariffs-the-primary-cause-of-the-civil-war/

 

[sculptor]

The war resulted from causes unrelated to slavery and abolition. It was entirely a consequence of the Southern states' secession, which occurred despite the undeniable fact that the slave states could not have hoped for better protection of slavery than that afforded by the U. S. Constitution — provided they remained in the Union.

Both Lincoln and the slaveholders well knew in 1860 that a constitutional amendment ending slavery would never be mathematically feasible. But Lincoln further understood that the South was gravitating toward secession as the remedy for a different grievance altogether: The egregiously inequitable effects of a U. S. protective tariff that provided 90 percent of federal revenue.

Foreign governments retaliated for it with tariffs of their own, and payment of those overseas levies represented the cost to Americans of their U. S. government. Southerners were generating two-thirds of U. S. exports, and also bearing two-thirds of the retaliatory tariffs abroad.

The result was that that the 18.5 percent of America's citizens who lived in the South were saddled with three times their proportionate share of the federal government's costs.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/20...1_slavery-constitutional-convention-secession

........................
Of course you are entirely within your rights to continue to delude yourself.
(facts be damned, go with the pc bullshit)

 

[sculptor]

"Cartoon drawn during the nullification controversy showing the Northern domestic manufacturers getting fat at the expense of impoverishing the South under protective tariffs." - Encyclopedia of Britannica

Historians Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffer found that a few common factors increase the likelihood of secession in a region: lower wages, an economy based on raw materials and external exploitation. Although popular movies emphasize slavery as a cause of the Civil War, the war best fits a psycho-historical model of the South rebelling against Northern exploitation.

Many Americans do not understand this fact. A non-slave-owning Southern merchant angered over yet another proposed tariff act does not make a compelling scene in a movie. However, that would be closer to the original cause of the Civil War than any scene of slaves picking cotton.

 

[sculptor]

see also:
"We are going to make tax slaves out of you," Lincoln was effectively saying, "and if you resist, there will be an invasion." That was on March 4. Five weeks later, on April 12, Fort Sumter, a tariff collection point in Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by the Confederates. No one was hurt or killed, and Lincoln later revealed that he manipulated the Confederates into firing the first shot, which helped generate war fever in the North.

With slavery, Lincoln was conciliatory. In his first inaugural address, he said he had no intention of disturbing slavery, and he appealed to all his past speeches to any who may have doubted him. Even if he did, he said, it would be unconstitutional to do so.

But with the tariff it was different. He was not about to back down to the South Carolina tariff nullifiers, as Andrew Jackson had done, and was willing to launch an invasion that would ultimately cost the lives of 620,000 Americans to prove his point.

https://mises.org/library/lincolns-tariff-war

The tariffs were enforced by fort sumter in Charleston harbor.
If you are being oppressed, and you tell "them" to stop, and they threaten you with violence/invasion. Fire the first shot. ..............and, they did, and they lost.

 

[sculptor]

The question was the nature of peace, and you came up with the peevish postwar pro-slavery argument.
.

Tiassa:
psst;
fyi:
My little rant there was not about slavery, nor the civil war per se.
Rather, it was precisely about:
"Revisionist history and other lies suck."

The example offered was for purposes of clarification via "historical" incidence.

So, then: One wonders as to what is gained by such deceit? Has it to do with the greed of the carpetbaggers? Has it to do with guilt over the death and destruction? Guilt is a terrible thing because the victor needs to justify the mistreatment of the victim, and portraying that victim as evil eases the guilty conscience. And could lead to feeling justified in dropping atomic bombs on civilians.
...............................

Another example is:
"Who killed the 2 princes"
The common historical claim is that their uncle Richard had them murdered:
OK
bullshit
After Richard's death when Henry Tudor was king, the chancellor of the exchequer signed out an extra pillow for one of the princes(who then, was obviously alive at that time).

To the victor belong the spoils, including the right to claim right and create an historical fiction to justify the actions taken.

ergo:
"Revisionist history and other lies suck."

 

[spidergoat]

Revisionist history says that the Civil War was about state's rights and not slavery.

 

[sculptor]

Revisionist history says that the Civil War was about state's rights and not slavery.

Very much so during the nullification crisis 1828-1832 after South Carolina declared the high tariffs unconstitutional.
The 1828 South Carolina Exposition was written in response to the 1828 Tariff of Abominations(50%) that favored the commercial interests of the North at the expense of the South.
The South Carolina convention declared that the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 "are unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State."
This time, they compromised.
However, during the crisis, Congress passed the Force Act that authorized the use of military force against any state that resisted the tariff acts.
And this act, is what Lincoln used to threaten invasion.

That pot simmered for over a generation before it boiled over.

 

[iceaura]

The war resulted from causes unrelated to slavery and abolition.

Nobody fought in that war for any cause unrelated to slavery and abolition. The Civil War was not a tax revolt. The States Rights involved then - and ever since - were not tariff issues, but slavery issues.

Everything you posted - all the taxes, all the economic issues, the whole damn thing - came from the Confederacy building its entire economy on plantation slavery and its entire society on the racial bigotry necessary to maintain that slavery. That is what was threatened by Lincoln - Confederate plantation slavery, racial oppression of the enslaved.

So had been built the largest and most profitable capitalist enterprise in the Western Hemisphere. Some rich and powerful of the planet earth saw a threat to their investment, and foresaw an end their "way of life". And they rallied their base.

Without slavery and abolition, there's no Confederate Army in 1861 (and a much smaller Union Army). No treason by high officials and military Generals. No Cornerstone Speech and call to arms across the South (or North). None of it.

"We are going to make tax slaves out of you," Lincoln was effectively saying, "and if you resist, there will be an invasion."

"Tax slaves"? Really - you are going to go there. The southern plantation owners were on the point of being made "tax slaves" by Lincoln, and so the white men of the South picked up rifles and went to war to defend them from this onerous taxation. You're serious.

The result was that that the 18.5 percent of America's citizens who lived in the South were saddled with three times their proportionate share of the federal government's costs.

For which the obvious fix of making citizens out of a higher proportion of the residents of the South, simultaneously depriving Lincoln of his significant and critical abolitionist support, and thereby outvoting those tyrannical taxation advocates (as well as making that "proportional" calculation have some ghost of an actual meaning in this thread), was right in front of them.

The South Carolina convention declared that the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 "are unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State."

State's don't pay tariffs. Plantation owners who export do. The fact that the Federal government has the power to levy taxes on even the most wealthy has been a source of political trouble in the US for a very long time. But hundreds of thousands of working class men don't put their lives on the line over tariff law issues.

So, then: One wonders as to what is gained by such deceit?

One would, maybe.
If it weren't obvious.

 

[sculptor]

I can see that you have already made up your mind to believe this lunacy.

One last try:
Most Americans, no doubt, imagine the prewar South as a region so thickly dotted with immense plantations on which most of the black and white populations worked and lived. But, on the contrary, while slaves made up 40% of the total population of the South, only 25 percent of free families, most of them white, owned any slaves at all, and fully one-half of this minority (12.5%) held fewer than five slaves. Only an owner of twenty or more slaves, and of substantial land, could qualify as a planter, and fewer than 10 percent of slave-holding families qualified. The plantation elite of the antebellum South made up less than 3 percent of the free population in the region and less than 2 percent of the total free and slave populations combined.

So why would the 75% of the population fight for something that they did not have and would never have?

If you cannot accept facts and reason, try logic.

 

[spidergoat]

So why would the 75% of the population fight for something that they did not have and would never have?

Why did working class people vote for Trump?

Maybe they were terrified of a free black population in their midst. See what they did to those poor people after slavery became illegal? But don't take my word for it, read the reasons the states listed for succession themselves, they were pretty clear about it.
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html

 

[Dr_Toad]

spdergoat, where were you born? Who the hell should be afraid of a free black population?

I'm way more concerned with a "free" Muslim population than I am shitholes like Chicongo.

 

[iceaura]

So why would the 75% of the population fight for something that they did not have and would never have?

Like tariff (tax) cuts for rich people? That's your explanation. I can see them used to con a trickle-down vote out of somebody, but it seems a bit light for getting them to launch a war.

Why not ask the record? They left plenty of documentation, plenty of letters and speeches and votes and so forth, for you to read.

You won't find much mention of tariffs. You will find plenty of mention of the folly of abolition and the naive Yankees advocating it, the various threats posed by niggers running around loose, the necessity of defending white womanhood, the wonderfulness of their way of life just as it is, the natural order of slavery as laid out in the Bible, the tyranny of abolition as it takes the property of honest working men who earned it, the dependence of niggers on being cared for by benevolent white owners, etc etc etc.

These people were immersed in slaveholding society - they were surrounded by other people's slaves, dealing with slaves and slaveholding customs and benefits every day of their lives. (For one example: many people who did not own expensive slaves rented them for temporary or seasonal tasks.). And the threat of abolition was a central aspect of their political lives - the free States were just a bit north, they had frequent contact. They had to defend slavery, in public, in political discourse.

And as a result most were profoundly and intractably bigoted, racially. This extreme racial prejudice dominated American politics and culture for the next century, and fundamentally influences it yet today.

If you cannot accept facts and reason, try logic.

Try observation. That works to correct the mental glitches of supposed "reason" and "logic", and this is a science forum.