Clap if You Believe in Slavery!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/07/AR2011010703178.html

Five Myths About Why The South Seceded

By James W. Loewen

Sunday, January 9, 2011; 12:00 AM


Excellent article worth reading since there is a lot of revisionist historical twaddle being spread around by the right-wing twaddlers-in-chief these days about this very topic. There are or were some commemorations of the 150th anniversary of the secession of the Southern states in 1860-61 planned, and the whole rationale is that the internecine  Unpleasantness Between The States was due to a difference of opinion about States' Rights or whether the Mason-Dixon Line was actually not a line at all, but a rhombus.

For myself, the most interesting part is:

Other seceding states echoed South Carolina. "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world," proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. "Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."

We can absolutely believe anything if we just want to badly enough. I mean, this whole things reminds me of Peter Pan where Peter asks the audience to clap their hands if they believe in fairies, thereby saving the life of Tinkerbell! Generations of excellent men did the same thing with Slavery. Imagine John Calhoun - or Thomas Jefferson, for that matter - loudly exhorting us to clap if we believe in Slavery!
But that is essentially what many did and many continue to do.

This is essentially what we are doing now.

What are the ideologies and beliefs we are presently pushing ourselves to applaud for most loudly? Guns? Free Market Politics? Small Government? Budget Balancing? Justice Scalia's Originalism (originalism is a principle of interpretation that tries to find out the original meaning or intent of the authors of the Constitution of the US)?  Atheism? Fundamentalism?
Take your pick. You pay your 2 cents and you take your choice.

--