The 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War passed the other day, on April 9th. There was surprisingly little on the internet about it despite the numerical value of a century and a half. 149, 151- no big deal. One-fifty is a pretty big deal. I read something about the formerly warring soldiers playing baseball outside while Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Maybe that was true.
State's rights, 150 years later, are still a big deal. They might be a bigger deal now than they were then. More people now probably believe that "state's rights" were the cause of the civil war, rather than slavery. Make that- instead of slavery. See, a lot of people think that slavery had scant little to do with the war, that it was just southern states yearning to be free from the yoke of Yankee oppression and enslavement...and taking their nigras with them....
Well, there's rarely just one cause of any problem. Personally I don't think that most southerners want to believe that their ancestors died for black folks. Many in the north might feel that way too though certainly not as heartfelt as in the south. There are untold thousands of people below the Mason-Dixon that might wake up screaming in the middle of the night wondering why they lost that war, but everyone above the line sleeps like a victorious baby. That's to say that no one wakes up celebrating that we won! WOO HOO!
So, perhaps it was a state's right to own human beings as pets and farm animals?
There's often a lot of irony associated with history. Republicans of today like to point out the the republican party was formed just prior to the Civil War to free slaves. Indeed, that is on their resume. They haven't done a goddamned thing for blacks since, but they did do that. And, yes, they like to point out that the south was democrat who battled against Civil Rights. Of course, they don't complete the thought that those democrats left the DNC, became republicans and kept their racist views. Leopards don't change spots but people do change political parties. It's kinda important that the racists left the "D's" to join the "R's", don't ya think? I can see why they leave that out though. It's fascinating to see outright white racists so matter-a-factly blame today's democrats for the sins of those former democrats of fifty years ago, while claiming credit for the freeing of slaves 150 years earlier, and basically hating all blacks this side of Ben Carson- which, by the way, is all of them. Now, THAT is politics!
So, back to state's rights. It was a cop out then and it's a cop out now. In a way it's still about slavery though. It's about economic slavery and the elimination of the Federal minimum wage. And a few other things... Actually all things Federal. That's the small government bullshit that they talk about while declaring this "The Greatest Country In The WORLD!!!" How do you do that and then say you want to shrink government to a size that it fits in a bathtub, so you can then strangle and drowned it? I'm not saying that "government is country". But the Federal government is the UNITED States and without it we are pretty much Europe, but with pretty much one language. Yep. We'd be 50 countries instead of one. Well, 50 for awhile. There'd be some wars. You can count on that.
In theory- if the GOP has an actually theory- there would be 50 Americas all competing in a free market of American exceptional-ism. That would make the whole country stronger, even if it weren't a country anymore. That's like saying your marriage is stronger, ya know- since the divorce....
It's ridiculous and, most of it is cheap political rhetoric. Much of the country is like White Sox fans who, before inter-league play when ballgames between the two didn't actually count, used to plead of the Sox players: "We don't care what you do all year- just beat the Cubs in The Crosstown Classic!!!"
I'm not kidding. Fuck the entire season, just beat the team we hate in an exhibition game. That's their approach to baseball. Fucking disgusting. Sad too.
Politically it's like telling the GOP: "You can do whatever you want with our tax money, civil liberties and children's futures- just don't let them queers marry!"
Just like with the Sox *fans* who hate the Cubs and their fans more than they love their team, there are those in the south and all over the GOP who hate America more than they love...America. That seems incongruous and nonsensical but that's only because it is nonsensical and incongruous.
I wonder who won the ballgame 150 years ago?
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