Re: The War of Northern Aggression

At 01:15 PM 7/26/96 -0400, AThos wrote:

>Hmmm...I just LOVE the way our educational system
>teaches students that EVERY white Southerner 
>owned at LEAST ten slaves (the definition of a 
>"slaveholding plantation") and fought the Civil 
>War SOLELY so the government wouldn't take them 
>away.

     Haven't been in the formal "educational 
system" for a number of years now, at least not 
as a student, but *I* love the way that it now 
apparently teaches youngsters to leap blindly for 
the easiest straw-dog instead of analyzing other 
possibilities. For example:

     (1) My tongue-in-cheek response did *not* 
assume that "every white southerner owned at least
10 slaves" -- because if I recall correctly, no
more than 10% actually did. It assumed at most
that (a) such southerners were opinion leaders
(which is correct), and (b) through whatever 
propaganda devices, they convinced the poor dumb
redneck majority to fight their war -- much as
peasants waged feudal wars and the U.S. socio-
economic elite avoided significant exposure in 
Vietnam.

     (2) My reference to the immediate cause of
the War is equally correct. The Republicans and
and Lincoln's implementation thereof called for
stopping the expansion of slavery, but *not* 
interfering with it in existing states. So the 
"fighting for home" nonsense is exactly that -- 
the South started the Civil War because its most 
prosperous element feared stagnation and long-term
erosion of its most obvious asset. Successful
propaganda and often-praiseworthy-but-here-terribly-
misguided bullheadedness did the rest ...

     Oh, yes -- some Who content: "the f*cking 
vegetables ... they didn't get it. They just didn't
get it" (Townshend, "Lifehouse" BBC documentary, 
1996).

>Look away, look away. . .

     From where "Mine eyes have seen the glory"?

Have a nice day!

Bob
NP: "Shoot, Shoot"

Bad defeats Good then self-destructs ...