talk.politics.misc

Wexford wrote:
> On Oct 5, 12:14 pm, 3806 Dead wrote:
>
>
>> 4. It's not true that the a wealthy nation through the
>>abuse of slave labor: the most prosperous states in the country were
>>those that first freed their slaves.
>>
>> This is historical revisionism, at best. The Southern colonies
>>were more prosperous than the north for much of our pre-revolutionary
>>history. Charleston, ., was the largest city in the colonies for
>>years. Even after the North's ascendancy in the early Industrial Era,
>>the majority of the vast wealth generated by the states that would
>>comprise the Confederacy was generated by slave labor. To ignore that
>>fact is disingenuous and not a little reprehensible.
>
>
> For a while, Mississippi, with its indigo and other crops, all tended
> by slaves, was the richest state in the union.

I heard that the total value of Southern slaves exceeded the
total value of all the industry in the country.

>> 5. While America deserves no unique blame for the existence of
>>slavery, the United States merits special credit for its rapid
>>abolition.
>>
>> All it took was the deaths of 500,000 Union and Confederate
>>soldiers, and the complete destruction of the slave economy in the
>>South - a loss we are only just now starting to recover from in many
>>ways.
>
> Rapid abolition? Two centuries and, as my astute colleague points out,
> the deaths of 1/2 million Americans.

And that was over 40 years after Britain had abolished slavery.
Rapid? Slavery was abolished in Massachusetts in 1781 or
thereabouts. That means the whole process took well over 80
years, at least.

>> 6. There is no reason to believe that today's African-Americans
>>would be better off if their ancestors had remained behind in Africa.
>>
>> It is impossible to game out what would have happened in
>>Africa if so much of its population hadn't been captured and exported
>>into servitude, especially since the descendants of these people have
>>proven to be enterprising, innovative, intelligent and talented.
>
> Yes, and no reason to believe that Medved would not have been better
> off born and living in some village in Poland or Russia.

Not to mention the colonization of Africa, with the wealth of
that continent being taken back to Europe at gunpoint. Those
were complementary processes.

>> This article is a real head-scratcher. It appears to be a
>>preemptive argument against paying reparations to the descendants of
>>African slaves, but if the reparations movement has made significant
>>inroads lately, it is news to me.
>> On the other hand, if Medved's piece was intended to open a new
>>dialog on racism in America, it is clear that liberals and
>>conservatives are as far apart as ever on this issue.
>
> He should write for the united Klans.

The more conservative the punditocracy gets, the greater
tendency toward reactionary paeans to even the worst aspects of
our history.

--Jeff

--
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense
a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and are not clothed."
--Dwight Eisenhower